Question

#APA citation style cites author names like this:

#

#  Last, F., Joyner, D., & Burdell, G.

#

#Note the following:

#

# - Each individual name is listed as the last name, then a

#   comma, then the first initial, then a period.

# - The names are separated by commas, including the last

#   two.

# - There is also an ampersand and additional space before

#   the final name.

# - There is no space or comma following the last period.

#

#Write a function called names_to_apa. names_to_apa should

#take as input one string, and return a reformatted string

#according to the style given above. You can assume that

#the input string will be of the following format:

#

#  First Last, David Joyner, and George Burdell

#

#You may assume the following:

#

# - There will be at least three names, with "and" before

#   the last name.

# - Each name will have exactly two words.

# - There will be commas between each pair of names.

# - The word 'and' will precede the last name.

# - The names will only be letters (no punctuation, special

#   characters, etc.), and first and last name will both be

#   capitalized.

#Write your function below!

#Below are some lines of code that will test your function.

#You can change the value of the variable(s) to test your

#function with different inputs.

#

#If your function works correctly, this will originally

#print: Last, F., Joyner, D., & Burdell, G.

print(names_to_apa("First Last, David Joyner, and George Burdell"))

Answer 1

def names_to_apa(s):
#Split names separated by a comma
names = s.split(',')
n = len(names)

result = "" #To store final output

for i in range(n) :
   #Split names into first, lastname etc separated by space
   name = names[i].split(' ')

   #Remove empty spaces,also ignore the word 'and'
   if("" in name):
     name.remove("")
   if("and" in name):
     name.remove("and")

   #Append '&' if it is the last name
   if(i == n-1 and n>1):
       result = result + "& "

   #Append Last name and First name initial
   #name[-1] gives last index, name[0][0] = 1st character of 1st name
   result = result + name[-1] + ", " + name[0][0] + "."

   #Append a comma .
   if(i<n-1 and n>1):
     result = result + ', '

return result

####################### TEST #######################
print(names_to_apa("First Last, David Joyner, and George Burdell"))