I'm trying to create a function to translate words to numbers, one of the parameters is "depth" if depth is 1, then the function will know "Ok, I'm translating a word", if depth is 2 the function will know "Now I'm translating a list of words"... etc

The question:

There's a form to add "for" loops if X == Y? This is the current form of the function:

def translate(input_: Union[str, list], depth: int = 3):
    
    if depth == 1: # Just one word
        sum: int = 0
        for char in input_:
            sum  = 17 * ord(char)
        
        return sum

    if depth == 2: # list of words
        buffer: list = []
        
        for word in input_: # for each word in list
            sum: int = 0
            for char in word: # the same as depth == 1
                sum  = 17 * ord(char)

            buffer.append(sum)

    if depth == 3: # list of lists of words
        buffer: list = []

        for lst in input_:
            for word in lst: # the same as depth == 2
                sum: int = 0
                for char in word:
                    sum  = 17 * ord(char)

A pseudocode solution

In Python exist a form to do this?:

If depth > 2:
    
    MAIN.ADDFORLOOP(for LIST in INPUT) <- We added the for loop if there's more than one list to translate

if depth > 1:
    
    MAIN.ADDFORLOOP(for WORD in LIST) <- We added a for loop if there's more than one word


Here, if depth is 3 all for loops will be created, if depth is two, just two for loops will be created, etc

MAIN.LOADALLTHEFORLOOPS()

for char in word:
    # The function goes here

CodePudding user response：

You don't even need depth to resolve your problem. You can check if your object is list or not and use recursion like this:

def translate(input_: Union[str, list]):
    sum = 0
    for i in input_:
        if isinstance(i, list):
            sum  = translate(i)
        else:
            sum  = 17 * ord(i)
    return sum