Counting Jewels in Stones: A Beginner’s Guide

Introduction

Have you ever wondered how many of your stones are actually jewels? In this tutorial, we will explore a simple way to count the number of jewels in a collection of stones. We will break down the problem step-by-step, making it easy to understand even if you’re new to programming.

Prerequisites

Before we dive into the solution, here are a few things you should know:

• Basic understanding of strings in programming.
• Familiarity with loops and conditionals.
• Knowledge of a programming language (we will use Python for our examples).

Step-by-Step Guide

Let’s break down the problem into manageable steps:

1. Define the Problem: You are given two strings: one representing jewels and the other representing stones. Each character in these strings represents a type of jewel or stone.
2. Count the Jewels: We need to count how many characters in the stones string are also present in the jewels string.
3. Implement the Solution: We will write a function to perform this count.

Understanding the Code

Now, let’s look at the code that accomplishes this task:

def count_jewels(jewels, stones):
    jewel_set = set(jewels)  # Convert jewels to a set for faster lookup
    count = 0
    for stone in stones:
        if stone in jewel_set:
            count += 1
    return count

Here’s a breakdown of what each part of the code does:

• Function Definition: We define a function called count_jewels that takes two parameters: jewels and stones.
• Set for Fast Lookup: We convert the jewels string into a set called jewel_set. This allows us to check if a stone is a jewel quickly.
• Counting Jewels: We initialize a counter count to zero. Then, we loop through each stone in the stones string. If the stone is found in jewel_set, we increment the count.
• Return the Count: Finally, we return the total count of jewels found in the stones.

Example Usage

Let’s see how we can use our function with an example:

jewels = "aA"
stones = "aAAbbbb"
result = count_jewels(jewels, stones)
print(result)  # Output: 3

In this example, the jewels are represented by the characters a and A. The stones string contains three jewels, so the output will be 3.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You have learned how to count the number of jewels in a collection of stones using a simple function. This exercise not only helps you practice string manipulation but also enhances your problem-solving skills in programming.

For further reading and more examples, check out the following links:

• Continue reading on deluxify »”>Link to additional resources