Starter Files

The goal of this assignment is to make you consider solutions for how to help ELL students, and help you practice how to combine concepts you have learned over the entirety of CSC108 such as:

• Manipulating Strings
• Reading and Writing to Files
• For Loops
• Utilizing Dictionaries
• Conditionals

Context:

In order to help ELL students, Professor Ajaya wants to make transcripts of his lectures available for students to review concepts after class. However, when he reviews the transcripts, he realizes that he used idioms and expressions that ELL students may not be able to understand.

In order to make the transcripts more accessible for ELL students, Professor Ajaya tasks you with writing a script that can create lecture transcripts with appropriate definitions.

Example

Consider that the original transcript consists of one line:

However, the ELL students may not understand the idiom finding a needle in a haystack.  So, you need to produce a new transcript like so:

In essence, you need to insert the definition of the term in the new file

Tools Given to You

In order to complete this task, you have been given:

1. A dictionary called IDIOM_TO_DEFINITION that maps vocabulary terms to their definition. From the above example, “control flow” would be a key, while its definition is the value
2. A function called test_file_equality that tells you whether two files have the same content or not
3. Five files that will help you get started with testing, along what they are supposed to look like

Your Task

For this project, you must:

1. Complete the function simplify_line. simplify_line, given a string, checks whether or not the string contains any vocabulary we need to provide definitions for. If there is vocabulary we need to provide a definition for, it returns a new string with the original line, and the definitions. In order to complete this task, consider:
   1. 1. All the expressions you need definitions for is given by the keys of the IDIOM_TO_DEFINITION dictionary
      2. You need to go through each word in the given line, and detect whether or not the word is a key in  IDIOM_TO_DEFINITION. 
      3. You must also consider the fact that IDIOM_TO_DEFINITION has keys that contain for two words– when going through the line, you must also check every pair of words as well
         1. You should be able to detect an idiom in the list, even if it in a different case from the key in the dictionary
      4. If you detect a vocabulary word, you need to insert the definition after the line– specifically there must be one empty line in-between the original line and the definition, and one empty line after the definition
      5. If you detect multiple vocabulary words in the same sentence, then you must insert the definitions for each word in order of appearance.
         1. For example, if “lists” comes before “dictionaries” then the definition for lists must be added before the definition of dictionaries. Both definitions comes after the original line.
         2. There should be an empty line in-between the original line and each definition. There should be an empty line after the definition
   2. Complete the function simplify_transcript. simplify_transcript, given the file name to a txt file (the lecture transcript) writes a new txt file that represents the simplified transcript with additional definitions.
      1. Every single line on the given txt file represents a sentence of the lecture transcript.
      2. Make sure to utilize simplify_line in order to complete this task.
      3. Make sure to test whether your function works with test_file_equality to compare the new file you produce and the solution files.

Testing

Consider what types of additional tests you need to do in order to ensure your code works. In particular,

1. Which of the functions above can have doctests? Do they need any doctests?
2. For this function, is it better to use unittest or pytest for extensive testing?

If you want a referesher on testing, check out this chapter: https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/cscriticalpedagogies/chapter/the-importance-of-utilizing-different-tests/

Done with your assignment? Unsatisfied with the difficulty level? Then consider challenging yourself by enhancing your solution:

1. The starter file gives you some idioms– but there are still a lot more students can encounter. How can you enhance the current dictionaru
2. Consider the keys of the IDIOM_TO_DEFINITION dictionary. Notice in test5.txt, even though it contains ‘ bang your head against the wall’ we don’t replace it with the definition– because they key is “banging your head against the wall.” Consider modifying the keys so that no matter which instance the idiom is used, you can replace the key?
3. Modify your solution so that after you provide the define an idiom once, you never add the definition for that idiom again.
4. Modify your solution so that after you provide the definition of an idiom K times, you never add the definition for that idiom again.
   1. Let’s K = 2. So if the idiom “a piece of cake” occurs five times in a transcript, you provide the definition for the first 2 occurrences, and the never again
5. Modify your solution so after defining an idiom once, you don’t define it again until you have detected the idiom two more times
   1. Let K = 2. So So if the idiom “a piece of cake” occurs seven times in a transcript, you provide the definition for the first first time– then you don’t provide the definition the second and third time. However, you provide the definition at the fourth occurrence. You don’t provide the definition for the fifth and sixth occurence, and provide it once again for the seventh.