Say

Given a number from 0 to 999,999,999,999, spell out that number in English.

Step 1

Handle the basic case of 0 through 99.

If the input to the program is 22, then the output should be 'twenty-two'.

Your program should complain loudly if given a number outside the blessed range.

Some good test cases for this program are:

• 0
• 14
• 50
• 98
• -1
• 100

Extension

If you're on a Mac, shell out to Mac OS X's say program to talk out loud. If you're on Linux or Windows, eSpeakNG may be available with the command espeak.

Step 2

Implement breaking a number up into chunks of thousands.

So 1234567890 should yield a list like 1, 234, 567, and 890, while the far simpler 1000 should yield just 1 and 0.

The program must also report any values that are out of range.

Step 3

Now handle inserting the appropriate scale word between those chunks.

So 1234567890 should yield '1 billion 234 million 567 thousand 890'

The program must also report any values that are out of range. It's fine to stop at "trillion".

Step 4

Put it all together to get nothing but plain English.

12345 should give twelve thousand three hundred forty-five.

The program must also report any values that are out of range.

Extensions

Use and (correctly) when spelling out the number in English:

• 14 becomes "fourteen".
• 100 becomes "one hundred".
• 120 becomes "one hundred and twenty".
• 1002 becomes "one thousand and two".
• 1323 becomes "one thousand three hundred and twenty-three".

Exception messages

Sometimes it is necessary to raise an exception. When you do this, you should include a meaningful error message to indicate what the source of the error is. This makes your code more readable and helps significantly with debugging. Not every exercise will require you to raise an exception, but for those that do, the tests will only pass if you include a message.

To raise a message with an exception, just write it as an argument to the exception type. For example, instead of raise Exception, you should write:

raise Exception("Meaningful message indicating the source of the error")

Running the tests

To run the tests, run the appropriate command below (why they are different):

• Python 2.7: py.test say_test.py
• Python 3.4+: pytest say_test.py

Alternatively, you can tell Python to run the pytest module (allowing the same command to be used regardless of Python version): python -m pytest say_test.py

Common pytest options

• -v : enable verbose output
• -x : stop running tests on first failure
• --ff : run failures from previous test before running other test cases

For other options, see python -m pytest -h

Submitting Exercises

Note that, when trying to submit an exercise, make sure the solution is in the $EXERCISM_WORKSPACE/python/say directory.

You can find your Exercism workspace by running exercism debug and looking for the line that starts with Workspace.

For more detailed information about running tests, code style and linting, please see Running the Tests.

Source

A variation on JavaRanch CattleDrive, exercise 4a http://www.javaranch.com/say.jsp

Submitting Incomplete Solutions

It's possible to submit an incomplete solution so you can see how others have completed the exercise.