Question

Could someone please explain to me an efficient way of solving the following in Pytnon:

Write a function called ​piece_to_strs(piece)

Parameters​:

A puzzle piece, encoded as a list of strings.

An example of the paramter would be: [‘abc’, ‘def’, ‘ghi’, ‘jkl’]

Return value(s):

5 strings, each of which is exactly 5 characters long. (This is another way to represent a grid of characters!) The text of the strings represents the puzzle piece as it will eventually be printed out: so the top line has a blank space, three characters, and another blank; the next three lines contain the left and right sides, and the bottom has the same basic shape as the top.

To make it easier to view the strings as representing a grid, string [0] of the returned list must be the ​bottom string, and string [4] must be the top.

The final print out from the new created list should be as follows (I am using @ to represent where blank spaces should be):

@abc@

l@@@d

k@@@e

j@@@f

@ihg@

Answer 1

l=['abc','def','ghi','jkl'];
newl=[]#new list
newl.insert(0,'@'+l[0]+'@')
i=0
j=2
for k in range(1,4):
newl.insert(k,l[3][j]+(3*'@')+l[1][i]);#taking characters from 1 and 3 index and appending in same loop
i=i+1#incrementing string character position
j=j-1#decrementing character position
newl.insert(4,'@'+l[2][::-1]+'@') # reversing string using slicing
print(newl)