Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

Python Python Collections (Retired) Dictionaries Teacher Stats

treehouse IDE incorrectly grading function?

So the treehouse IDE states that my function returns the wrong value. However, when I try the function outside of the IDE it works as expected. Any help here?

Thanks!

teachers.py
# The dictionary will be something like:
# {'Jason Seifer': ['Ruby Foundations', 'Ruby on Rails Forms', 'Technology Foundations'],
#  'Kenneth Love': ['Python Basics', 'Python Collections']}
#
# Often, it's a good idea to hold onto a max_count variable.
# Update it when you find a teacher with more classes than
# the current count. Better hold onto the teacher name somewhere
# too!
#
# Your code goes below here.
def most_classes (teacher_dict):
    copy_dict = teacher_dict
    max_teacher = ""
    max_count = 0

    for teacher, classes in copy_dict.items():
        if len(classes) > max_count:
            max_teacher = teacher
    return max_teacher

1 Answer

Chris Freeman
MOD
Chris Freeman
Treehouse Moderator 68,428 Points

You are very close. How are you keeping track of the current value of max_count? It doesn't seem to be getting updated anywhere.

Also, it is not necessary to make a copy of the teacher_dict. In this challenge you can use teacher_dict directly. In reality, the copy you've attempted is not actually a copy of the dict, but rather just a reference copy. Both copy_dict and teacher_dict point to the same object. Checking this in the REPL:

$ pythonPython 3.4.0 (default, Jun 19 2015, 14:20:21) 
[GCC 4.8.2] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> teacher_dict = {'Anne': ['course1', 'course2']}
>>> copy_dict = teacher_dict
>>> copy_dict is teacher_dict
True