Posts by Ene Uran

If you want to use Tkinter to draw some shapes see:
http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/post261377-80.html

If you want to display a GIF image with Tkinter see:
(for other image formats PIL works with Tkinter)
http://www.daniweb.com/code/snippet296.html

If you want to plot a math function you can use VPython:
http://www.daniweb.com/code/snippet376.html

The rules of the Game of Life are wonderfully explained at:
http://www.math.com/students/wonders/life/life.html

Let's draw some colorful shapes on a Tkinter canvas and clear the canvas after a given amount of seconds:

# clear the Tkinter canvas after drawing some shapes

from Tkinter import *

root = Tk()
root.title("clear canvas after 5 seconds")

# create the canvas to draw upon
# default background color (bg) is "facecolor"
c = Canvas(root, width=500, height=420, bg="white")
c.pack()

# draw a maroon line from x1=10,y1=20 to x2=200,y2=100
# default width=1 and fill="black"
c.create_line(10, 20, 200, 100, width=2, fill="maroon")

# draw an ovel inside a box with corner coordinates x1=200,y1=20 and x2=450,y2=100
# fill the oval blue (if the box is square a circle is drawn)
c.create_oval(200, 20, 450, 100, fill="blue")

# draw a red rectangle with corner coordinates x1=50,y1=150 and x2=300,y2=400
c.create_rectangle(50, 150, 300, 400, fill="red")

# since the above rectangle is a square stuff a green circle in it
c.create_oval(50, 150, 300, 400, fill="green")

root.after(5000, c.delete, ALL)  # after 5000 ms call c.delete(ALL)

root.mainloop()

Only guys? Using a urinal was part of sorority pledge week!

BTW, the guy I worked for during my summer job could in no way see what he was doing!

I don't know how it is in your country, but in the good old USA election time is coming up. I will go to the voting place and look at the slate of sh*t, and whomever I vote for will be, you guess what.

Any idea how to change things so one could get a choice at election day?

How about a vote at the bottom of the ballot, saying "I don't like any of the folks listed, please make a new list of people to choose from."

Or be allowed to give out negative votes. Still better than not voting at all, many young people do that!

Here is a mildly more modern way:

// convert string to all lower case

#include <algorithm>
#include <cctype>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>

using namespace std;

int lower_case ( int c )
{
  return tolower ( c );
}

int main()
{
  string s = "THIS IS A TEST";

  transform( s.begin(), s.end(), s.begin(), lower_case );
  cout << s << endl;
}

I know you are looking also at Python:

str1 = "THIS IS A TEST"
str2 = str1.lower()
print str2

Or as a one-liner:

print "THIS IS A TEST".lower()

Create a database you can search for names, phone numbers, addresses, hobbies, aspirations and so on.

You could use something like snippet:
http://www.daniweb.com/code/snippet390.html

However, you need to improve it so you can update and save and load the data as a file.

How about a database of your senior class. Something you can search for names, phone numbers, addresses, hobbies, aspirations, favorite music and moviestar and so on. Do it right, and you could be a popular person. You could hand it out on graduation day to anyone that contributed. Hope your senior class isn't too large!

You could use something like this snippet:
http://www.daniweb.com/code/snippet390.html
However, improve it so you can update and save/load the data as a file.

If you want to shine, use a GUI like Tkinter as the colorful front end.

There is something similar to that project on DaniWeb's C code snippets:
http://www.daniweb.com/code/snippet381.html
Sort of the next step to this project

Here is a small Python program for an online gem store:

# the online gem store

def add2cart(item, amount):
    """build up the cart list"""
    price = amount*list_of_gems[item-1][1]
    cart.append((item-1, amount, price))
    
# list of (gem, price) tuples
list_of_gems = [('ruby', 99.99), ('emerald', 72.50), ('topaz', 23.95), ('agate', 14.00)]

# will be list of (item#, amount, price) tuples
cart = []
# total of all purchases
total = 0

while True:
    print '-'*32, '\n\t\tList of Gems\n', '-'*32
    for k in range(len(list_of_gems)):
        # starts with item_number to enter
        print '%d\t%8s for $%0.2f each' % (k+1, list_of_gems[k][0], list_of_gems[k][1])
    try:
        item = int(raw_input('\nPlease select a gem (by number): '))
        if item > len(list_of_gems):
            print "item number too high! Try again!"
            item = 0
    except ValueError:
        print "Item number not correct! Try again!"
        item = 0
    try:
        if item > 0:
            amount = int(raw_input('Enter quantity of selected item: '))
    except ValueError:
        print "Amount not correct, has to be whole number!  Try again!"
        amount = 0
    if item > 0 and amount > 0:
        add2cart(item, amount)
    else:
        print "Please enter item and amount again!\a\n"
    
    # added .lower() so user can enter 'No' or 'NO' or 'no'
    more = raw_input('Want to buy something else (yes/no)? ').lower()
    # user can enter 'no' or just 'n'
    if 'n' in more:
        print
        print "Thank you for your order, here is your purchase detail:"
        break

print '\n', '~'*38
for x in range(len(cart)):
    item_number = cart[x][0]
    gem = list_of_gems[item_number][0]
    price = list_of_gems[item_number][1]
    quantity = cart[x][1]    
    total_per_item = cart[x][2]
    print '%4d  %8s @ $%0.2f …

Create a letter pyramid in Python.

let's say the user enters H
the pyramid should like this:
       A
      ABA
     ABCBA
    ABCDCBA
   ABCDEDCBA
  ABCDEFEDCBA
 ABCDEFGFEDCBA
ABCDEFGHGFEDCBA

Let's not forget the Python allows Functional (ala Lisp) and Meta Programming. Just a different approach (higher level) to pogramming.

Do we need that?
Once you play with it you'll miss it!

The size of a character in a string is a byte. You could use ord() and chr() to convert back and forth. Make your life interesting!

The integer is the smallest number in Python.

For the purpose of shift and mask operations, integers are assumed to have a binary, 2's complement notation using 32 or more bits, and hiding no bits from the user (i.e., all 4294967296 different bit patterns correspond to different values).

What do you mean with reversing a hex string?

I think we just had a discussion related to the same issue at:
http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread55436.html

At first glance, random.choice('01') returns a string '0' or '1' so your if statement has to reflect that:

def fight_unicorn():
    global monster_HP1
    global hp
    hit_miss = random.choice('01')
    if hit_miss == '1':                  #!!!!!!!
        print "You hit the monster!"
        monster_HP1 = monster_HP1 - 1
        if monster_HP1 == '0':      #!!!!!!!!
            print "You win!"
            master_bedroom()
        else:
            monster_turn1()
    else:
        print "You Missed"
        monster_turn1()

def monster_turn1():
    monster_hit = random.choice('01')
    if monster_hit == '1':             #!!!!!!
        print "You are hit!"
        hp = hp-1
        if hp == 0:
            print "Game Over"
    else:
        print "The monster missed"
        fight_unicorn()

Note, if you want an integer returned, use one of the following:

x = random.choice([0, 1])
print x, type(x)  # testing

x = random.randrange(0, 2)
print x, type(x)

x = random.randint(0, 1)
print x, type(x)

In the case of:

import random
random.randint(5)

random is a module, and you are using the namespace random. Note that random is not a class!

To find out if an object is a class use something like this:

import inspect
if inspect.isclass(object_name):
    print "object_name is a class"

Generally, Python recommends to start class names with a Capital letter. This disinguishes them from module namespaces.

Here is a case where making an instance of an empty class means something:

class Employee:
    pass


john = Employee() # Create an empty employee record/struct
ted = Employee()

# fill the fields of the record/struct
john.name = 'John Johnson'
john.dept = 'computer lab'
john.salary = 3000

ted.name = 'Ted Tetris'
ted.dept = 'human resources'
ted.salary = 5000

print "%s works in the %s and earns $%s/month" % (john.name, john.dept, john.salary)

In other words, you can create new class variables outside the class!

Thanks Jeff, good observation! To bad the Python help never mentions that! If you insist on using fromkeys() you could use a tuple, adding two tuples forms a new tuple and there is no problem:

d = dict().fromkeys(range(1,10), ())

print d  # {1: (), 2: (), 3: (), 4: (), 5: (), 6: (), 7: (), 8: (), 9: ()}
print id(d[1]), id(d[2]), id(d[3])  # 10948656 10948656 10948656  same object!

# works with a tuple, since adding two tuples creates a new tuple object
d[1] += (2,)

print d  # {1: (2,), 2: (), 3: (), 4: (), 5: (), 6: (), 7: (), 8: (), 9: ()}

I use the DrPython IDE and that one allows me to set arguments like they would come from the command line.

Take a look at:
http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/post193207-50.html

I have used a default argument under the else, particular for testing a program.

Here is Python code to find when a file has been last modified:

import os
import time

# pick a file you have in the working directory
filename = "test.txt"

print "Last modified time of file:", filename
print time.ctime(os.path.getmtime(filename))

# or 24 hour format eg. 06/28/2006 05:04:19
print time.strftime("%m/%d/%Y %H:%M:%S",time.localtime(os.path.getmtime(filename)))

# or 12 hour format eg. 06/28/2006 05:04:19 AM
print time.strftime("%m/%d/%Y %I:%M:%S %p",time.localtime(os.path.getmtime(filename)))

You could use this information to write a program that will scan your harddrive or a directory, and display all the files that have been modified in the last 24 hours.

Its me, Ene,
note that each button ends up executing a function defined in the program. The button uses the command=function statement. The function is activated via its object (ie. just function rng), and not the usual function call (ie. would be rng() ).

Also note that rng is not a keyword, but just a name vegaseat picked for the function he defined earlier. So if you want an RNG going, put it into the function rng() (or whatever you want to name it), then activate it via command=rng.

Take a look at this Python code snippet at:
http://www.daniweb.com/code/snippet360.html
It uses a bitwise shift right operator to get the binary representation of an integer.

Editor's note:
I think we lost the reference when snippets were folded into the regular forum. Looks like Ene refers to ...

def denary2binary(n):
    '''convert denary integer n to binary string bStr'''
    bStr = ''
    if n < 0:  raise ValueError, "must be a positive integer"
    if n == 0: return '0'
    while n > 0:
        bStr = str(n % 2) + bStr
        n = n >> 1
    return bStr

# test
print(denary2binary(255))  # 11111111
print(denary2binary(128))  # 10000000
print(denary2binary(127))  # 1111111

Some C++ books like Deitel&Deitel are full with practice projects of this kind. You might want to post this question on the "C and C++" forum here. Some of the folks there are very helpful!

I took the liberty to modify vegaseat's previous example code to show you how buttons would work:

from Tkinter import *

root = Tk()
root.title("Press Button!")

def show_image2():
    canvas1.create_image(x, y, image=photo2)

def show_image3():
    canvas1.create_image(x, y, image=photo3)


# pick three GIF image files you have in your working directory
# image1 is larger than image2 and image3
# create all three image objects now
image1 = "Red200x200.GIF"
photo1 = PhotoImage(file=image1)

image2 = "Green100x100.GIF"
photo2 = PhotoImage(file=image2)

image3 = "Blue100x100.GIF"
photo3 = PhotoImage(file=image3)

# make canvas the size of image1/photo1
width1 = photo1.width()
height1 = photo1.height()
canvas1 = Canvas(width=width1, height=height1)
canvas1.pack()

# display photo1, x, y is center
x = (width1)/2.0
y = (height1)/2.0
canvas1.create_image(x, y, image=photo1)

# create two buttons to display smaller images
btn1 = Button(root, text="Image2", command=show_image2)
btn1. pack()
btn2 = Button(root, text="Image3", command=show_image3)
btn2. pack()

root.mainloop()

I don't know what editor you are using, but for some odd reason you lost all the indentations (critical for Python to work). I doctored up your code and added a number of temporary print statements, always good for troubleshooting. I noticed that your mult() has no return statement, so result = None is the returned.
Here is the doctored code:

class dimensions:
    def __init__(self, listofTuples):
        self.expr = listofTuples
 
    def sub(self, other):
        for value in self.expr:
            if not value in other.expr:
                return "incompatible"
            return self.expr

    def mult(self, other):
        tempTuple1=list()
        tempTuple2=list()
        print tempTuple1 # []
        print tempTuple2 # []
        print other.expr # [('j', 2), ('km', 1), ('f', 5)]
        print self.expr  # [('j', 2), ('f', 1)]

        i=0
        for unit,value in other.expr:
            for unit2,value2 in self.expr:
                if unit2 == unit:
                    tempTuple1.append((unit, value+value2))
                    tempTuple2.append(())

##      for unit2,value2 in self.expr:
##          for unit,value in other.expr:
##              if unit2 != unit:
##                  tempTuple1.append((unit2,value2))
 
        print tempTuple1 # [('j', 4), ('f', 6)]
        print tempTuple2 # [(), ()]
        # what does mult() return?????

t = dimensions([('j',2),('km',1), ('f',5)])
print t # <__main__.dimensions instance at 0x00AE6BE8>
w = dimensions([('j',2),('f',1)])
print w # <__main__.dimensions instance at 0x00AE6EE0>
print w.mult(t) # gives None, correct since there is no return

How new are you to Python?

You need to give us more of your code, otherwise this will be an exercise in mind reading!

Below is a short Python code example that allows you to add new words to a list of words. The word list can be loaded, updated and saved:

# add new words to a word list, uses module pickle to load and update an 
# existing word list file, starts with an empty word list if no file exists

import pickle

filename = "wordlist.dat"

try:
    file = open(filename, "r")
    wordlist = pickle.load(file)
    file.close()
    print "Present word list from file %s:" % filename
    print wordlist
    original_length = len(wordlist)
except IOError:
    print "Present wordlist is empty!"
    wordlist = []

while True:
    answer = raw_input("Write some words (nothing to exit): ")
    if answer == "":
        break
    words = answer.split()
    for word in words:
        if word not in wordlist:
            wordlist.append(word)
            print "'%s' added to word list" % word
        else:
            print "'%s' already in word list" % word
            
# optional sort
wordlist.sort()
print
print wordlist

# check if a change has been made ...
if original_length < len(wordlist):
    # pickle/update list before exiting
    file = open(filename, "w")
    pickle.dump(wordlist, file)
    file.close()
    print "File %s has been updated!" % filename

Do a similar thing that allows you to build a dictionary of key:value pairs where
the key is the name of a person and the value is the phone number, or the name
and the address of a person, or a programming language keyword and a short
example of its use, or the name of an element and the symbol of the element.

Nice, nice, nice and spooky!!!! Just in time for Halloween!
I haven't tested it all the way, but made few recommendations and corrections indicated by the #!!!!! marks:

#Text Adventure.py
#By Chris O'Leary

# functions will pick the external gold value (for instance), as long as gold is not 
# a variable declared locally inside the function, this behaviour may change in future
# versions of Python, the safest way would be add the statement "global gold" to each 
# function that uses it !!!!!!!!!!!!

"""
# global declarations go into the functions that use them!!!!!
global gold
global gotGold_reading
global gotGold_SQ
global gotGold_liv
global gotGold_draw
global gotGold_din
"""

gold = 0
gotGold_reading = 0
gotGold_SQ = 0
gotGold_liv = 0
gotGold_draw = 0
gotGold_din = 0

# recommend to make help a function and give a few more details ...
def help():
    print "look, examine (object), n, w, e, s, take (item)"
    print "Example: examine vase, take gold"

    

def start():
    print '''
        ADVENT HOUSE v1.0
    You find yourself in the foyer of a large house. You
    have no idea how you got there. You look around, and see the front door.
    It is locked and barred, and the bar is nailed down. There is
    no way to open it. There are three other doors in the area. A voice says
    '50 gold is what you need,
    to escape my grasp, of this take heed!'

    Note: All instructions must be typed in small letters. No capitals.'''
    # recommend …

Sorry, shoud have read your info better. Here is a potential solution, using images, where a somewhat larger canvas forms a frame for the picture:

# image load and display using Tkinter only
# Tkinter reads only GIF and PGM/PPM images
# (for additional formats use Image, ImageTk from PIL)

from Tkinter import *

root = Tk()

# pick a GIF or PGM/PPM file you have in your working directory
imagefile = "Image1.gif"
photo1 = PhotoImage(file=imagefile)

width1 = photo1.width()
height1 = photo1.height()
# make canvas 100 pixels larger than the picture to create a frame
canvas1 = Canvas(width=width1+100, height=height1+100, bg='red')
canvas1.pack()

# anchor=CENTER is default
# x, y forms the center coordinates here, this gives image a red frame ...
x = (width1+100)/2.0
y = (height1+100)/2.0
canvas1.create_image(x, y, image=photo1)
root.mainloop()

Hope your images are pretty well fixed in size, otherwise you have to fix the size of the canvas to fit all your images. Have fun with the coding!

Are you thinking of somethig like this?

# explore Tkinter canvas.create_rectangle(x0, y0, x1, y1, option, ...)

from Tkinter import *

root = Tk()
root.title("Tkinter Rectangle")

canvas = Canvas(root, width=400, height=400)
canvas.pack()

# red rectangle is drawn with corner 
# coordinates x1=50, y1=50 and x2=350, y2=350
canvas.create_rectangle(50,50,350,350,fill='red')

# draw a smaller blue rectangle on top of the larger one
canvas.create_rectangle(150,150,250,250,fill='blue')

root.mainloop()

This seems to work too:

a = unichr(88).encode('utf8')
b = unichr(257).encode('utf8')
c = unichr(109).encode('utf8')
d = unichr(258).encode('utf8')
print a,b,c,d
e = a+b+c+d
print e
print
for c in e:
    print c
print
for i in e.decode('utf8'):
    print ord(i)

I agree, Python is fun! Take a look at:
http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/post225611-64.html
You can modify this to fit your needs.

I enjoyed the flow of this discussion, learned a lot!

I am willing to wait! Good things take their time. Hehe, try to tell that to your boss!

The major difference between C++ and Python is that Python compiles source code to byte code and then interprets the byte code. There are programs that combine the byte code with the interpreter and package to an executable for distribution. More and more computers have Python already installed, so you can just distribute your Python programs as source code, or more secretive byte code.

Some programs can run slower than the corresponding C++ program, but there are ways around this with modules written in C or C++, or just in time compilers similar to Java. Python has an easy way to handle modules.

Python is a high level language, very powerful, very modern, with a wealth of builtin classes and functions/methods. For instance, most of the STL containers that you are familiar with in C++ are builtin. If its not built into the language it is supplied as modules. Many modules are written in C or C++, transparent to you. Python has a very efficient memory manager builtin, so the notorious memory leaks of C++ are gone!

The major advantage of Python over C++ is its rapid development time for programs. On the average, programs are developed up to 10 times faster. Python code is easy to write, read, test and maintain. One of the reasons that Google uses Python extensively. Microsoft does not, and seems to lack behind most of the time. In my opinion, knowing C++ and Python is the best of both worlds.

…

You are off to an interesting start! Nice foyer, hehe, almost like mine at home!

Declare the variable gold global in each function that uses this global variable. This would also apply to strength, weapons, or any monster-kill flags. If a monster has been killed in a room you can set the flag so that this monster does not attack again. Of course you could revive the monster and make things much more difficult.

Sorry, I just realized that in your first version you might not go with monsters yet. Just explore, find enough gold, and get out! It will be interesting to read all your room descriptions.

It depends what you want to do. If you just want to make a simple fun game, there is no need for class objects. If you want to to do this to learn OOP, then by all means go for it. Your progress will be initially slow, because there is quite a learning curve.

Your approach making a class Room with the basics that all rooms can share, and then a class for each individual room that inherits the class Room makes the most sense. However, a lot of thought has to be put into this approach before any of the fun starts.

Just let us know what you have come up with, and how you would test each class to make sure it does what you want it to do.

You really don't need the function press_enter() there, since you are already executing your selected program.

The easiest game would be with a number of rooms. Draw yourself a map of 9 rooms (maybe a 3x3 pattern). Make notes on the map about details of the room, number of doors, contents, pictures, furniture and so on.

Let's say you come into the first room from the south. Now this room has a total of 4 doors, one to the south (S) where you came in, one to the east (E), north (N) and west (W). Ask the player which door he/she wants to enter. Like: "You want to go E, N or W?"

Rooms may have 2, 3 or 4 doors. Now the adventure begins. Some rooms contain a strength potion, or weapon, or some treasure, or cryptic instructions to read, or monsters to fight. When you fight a monster you lose strength. Some monsters are stronger than others. The player starts with a certain amount of strength points and gains more strength by picking up strength potions. Also loses less strength by picking up a better weapons. Each weapon has hit points, the more the better!

Describe the new room as the player enters. Like: "You entered a room that is painted green. There is a picture on the wall of an elderly gentleman. There are 5 gold pieces on the table for you. There are doors to the E and W. Do you want to go E or W?"

The rest is up to your imagination. When the player finds …

many thanks

how to add enter function in this script?

Very simple:

raw_input("Press Enter ...")  # wait till the Enter key is pressed

or ...

def press_enter():
    raw_input("Press enter to continue ...")

Python does not have a clear the screen function, but you could add:

print '\n' * 25

or:

import os
os.system('clear') # linux

instead of clear.

Your or statements weren't written correctly. In this case it's simpler to see if the word is in a tuple (or list) of choices:

#1337 to Human dictionary:
    
leet = {
"1337": "l-EET/nReally Awesome",
"noob": "(n00b) nOOb/nPerson who can't accept that s/he's wrong",
"-xxors": "Suffix, pron: zors.\nUsed to accent an important verb, e.g. roxxors",
"newb": "new-b,\nPerson who is new to a game and needs help. Not to be\nconfused with noob"
}
    
word = 1
while word not in ("", "0"):
    word = raw_input("Input a word to define: ")
    # correct use of or ...
    if word == "noob" or word == "n00b" or word == "nOOb":
        print leet['noob']
    # simpler, is word in a tuple (or list) ...
    elif word in ("leet", "elite", "1337", "l33t"):
        print leet['1337']
    elif word in ("xxors", "roxxors", "boxxors", "-xxors"):
        print leet['-xxors']
    elif word in ("newb", "newbie"):
        print leet['newb']

Nice code so far!
It would be easier on the user, if you only ask the user numbers to be entered once and then run the computer numbers against that! I like your compare, but there is a flaw. Lists [1,2,3,4,5,6] and [1,3,4,5,6,7] should have 5 matches, your compare would only show 1 match. I got to have time to look at it closer. To segregate 3, 4, 5 or 6 matches you just establish a counter for each. You might have to go to a million plus tries to get 6 matches!

This example uses list comprehension to remove duplicate elements, and is a modified version from vagaseat's code snippet at: http://www.daniweb.com/code/snippet454.html

gwb = "We got into deficit because the economy went into the recession that is how we got into deficit"

# convert to all lower case words
gwb = gwb.lower()

# form a list of words
rawList = gwb.split()

print "The raw list containing duplicates:"
print rawList

"""
result -->
The raw list containing duplicates:
['we', 'got', 'into', 'deficit', 'because', 'the', 'economy', 'went', 'into', 'the', 'recession', 'that', 'is', 'how', 'we', 'got', 'into', 'deficit']
"""

# create an empty list
uniqueList = []
# use list comprehension to exclude duplicate words when forming uniqueList
[uniqueList.append(str1) for str1 in rawList if not uniqueList.count(str1)]

print "\nThe unique list (no duplicates):"
print uniqueList

"""
result -->
The unique list (no duplicates):
['we', 'got', 'into', 'deficit', 'because', 'the', 'economy', 'went', 'recession', 'that', 'is', 'how']
"""

To make this song challenging you could change part of it:

def print_charlieVerse():
    print "Charlie was a pidgeon, a pidgeon, a pidgeon."
    print "Charlie was a pidgeon, a pidgeon that flew."
    print "He flew in the morning, he flew in the night."
    print "And when he came home he was covered in str3"   # covered in what?
    print

Where str3 rhymes with night and comes at random from a list of words.
Or, more involved:

def print_charlieVerse():
    print "Charlie was a pidgeon, a pidgeon, a pidgeon."
    print "Charlie was a pidgeon, a pidgeon that flew."
    print "He flew in the str1, he flew in the str2."
    print "And when he came home he was covered in str3"   # covered in what?
    print

Where str1 and str2 make sense and str3 rhymes with str2. You could also replace "flew", and be really annoying!

Write a function that takes a block of text and returns the text formatted with the specified indentation and specified maximum total length of each line. Should properly wrap the words.

Several problems with your program, I corrected some of them:

from Tkinter import *

root = Tk()

def hello():
    print "Hello!"

# removed unneeded arguments (metre,cm)
def metres_to_centimetres():
    metre = input("Put in a distance in metres: ")
    cm = metre*100
    print "Distance in Centimetres = ",cm
 
menubar = Menu(root)
filemenu = Menu(menubar, tearoff=0)
filemenu.add_command(label="Hello", command=hello)

# command accepts a function object but not a function call
# to pass any arguments you have to wrap the object in lambda
#filemenu.add_command(label="M to Cm", command=metres_to_centimetres(metre,cm))  # gives error
# actually you don't need to pass any arguments
filemenu.add_command(label="M to Cm", command=metres_to_centimetres)

filemenu.add_separator()
filemenu.add_command(label="Exit", command=root.quit)
menubar.add_cascade(label="File", menu=filemenu)
root.config(menu=menubar)
mainloop()

Now the major problem is that you are mixing console only functions like print and input with a GUI environment. In a GUI program you use widget Label for prompts and results, and widget Entry for data entry/input or display. Actions are generally done with a button click. Here is an example:

# example of a labeled data entry, a button and a result label
# use grid to position widgets, also set cursor to focus on entry
# a rather generic Tkinter GUI template for calculations

from Tkinter import *

def calculate():
    try:
        # get the enter1 value
        # use float() for either float or integer entry
        num1 = float(enter1.get())
        # do the calculation
        result = num1 * 100
        # display the result string
        # use str() to convert numbers to string for concatination with +
        label2.config(text=str(num1) + 'meters = ' …

I think vegaseat meant "Projects for the Beginner" to be for the beginning programmer who understood the basics of Python and wanted to do something with that knowledge. It was probably not meant to be a tutorial, just projects with a few hints thrown in.

You are right, why not a series of small projects that help you learn basic Python programming. I will try to come up with some fun projects as time permits, sure others will help too! So keep looking at "Projects for the Beginner".

One word of advice right away:
"Do not use list as a variable name since list is a function in Python!"

Use listA or something like that:

listA = ['Herring','used','to','be','abundant','in','the','Atlantic','Ocean','then','herring','got','overfished']
# start with an empty list
listB = []
# go through each word in listA
# convert it to lower case
# add it to listB with append()
for word in listA:
    word = word.lower()
    listB.append(word)

print listB

"""
result:
['herring', 'used', 'to', 'be', 'abundant', 'in', 'the', 'atlantic', 'ocean', 'then', 'herring', 'got', 'overfished']
"""

To make listB unique via a set, add this to the above code:

setB = set(listB)
listC = list(setB)
print listC

"""
notice that set() changes the word order to its own efficient hash order
result:
['be', 'used', 'overfished', 'then', 'ocean', 'to', 'atlantic', 'in', 'got', 'the', 'abundant', 'herring']
"""

Looks a lot more like C or C++ rather than Python!