Assignment Topics

The Python programs manipulate:

- lists,

- dictionaries and

- strings.

Question 10

This question concerns the development of an automated technical support system. Users can enter technical queries and the system will suggest solutions.

As it stands, the tech support system consists of the program 'noaid.py' which is found at the far bottom of this question series. Running this program produces the following behaviour:

Welcome to the automated technical support system.

Please describe your problem:

My computer keeps crashing

Curious, tell me more.

I don't think it has a driving license

Curious, tell me more.

Really?

Curious, tell me more.

Oh forget it!

Curious, tell me more.

quit

The program just prints out the same response again and again.

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10.1 Some aid

Using noaid.py as the basis, create a new program called someaid.py that randomly selects a response from a list. The list should contain the following responses in the following order:

- Have you tried it on a different operating system?

- Did you reboot it?

- What colour is it?

- You should consider installing anti-virus software.

- Contact Telkom.

- I should get that looked at if I were you.

Here's an example of expected behaviour:

Welcome to the automated technical support system.

Please describe your problem:

My computer keeps crashing

What colour is it?

Blue, why?

You should consider installing anti-virus software.

Oh

You should consider installing anti-virus software.

You said that

Did you reboot it?

No

Contact Telkom.

quit

NOTE: Your program must:

- Use a main() function.

- Use a list containing the given responses in the given order.

- Use the following conditional to ensure it is not run when imported:

if __name__=='__main__':

main()

- Randomly select responses by using the Python random.randint() function. You must import random.

The function randint(a, b) returns a random integer N such that a <= N <= b.

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10.2 Support

Using someaid.py as the basis, create a new program called support.py.

Modify support.py so that it keeps a dictionary of responses indexed by keywords.

- Assume that the user only ever inputs a single word at a time.

- Given a word entered by the user, the program will look for that entry in the dictionary and will print the associated response.

- If there is no entry for that word the program will output 'Curious, tell me more.'.

The dictionary should contain the following keyword-response pairs:

keyword	response
crashed	Are the drivers up to date?
blue	Ah, the blue screen of death. And then what happened?
hacked	You should consider installing anti-virus software.
Bluetooth	Have you tried mouthwash?
windows	Ah, I think I see your problem. What version?
apple	You do mean the computer kind?
spam	You should see if your mail client can filter messages.
connection	Contact Telkom.

Here's an example of expected behaviour:

Welcome to the automated technical support system.

Please describe your problem:

crashed

Are the drivers up to date?

yes

Curious, tell me more.

blue

Ah, the blue screen of death. And then what happened?

hacked

You should consider installing anti-virus software.

quit

NOTE: Your program must use a main() function and must contain the exact set of keyword and response pairs listed above.

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10.3 Tech Support

Using support.py as the basis, create a new program called techsupport.py. Modify techsupport.py so that it splits a query up into a list of words and then, taking each in turn, searches the dictionary for a match.

- Once it finds a match it should print the associated response.

- It should NOT print more than one response.

- If none of the words can be matched then the program should output 'Curious, tell me more.'.

Here's an example of expected behaviour:

Welcome to the automated technical support system.

Please describe your problem:

My computer crashed

Are the drivers up to date?

No

Curious, tell me more.

I don't have an internet connection

Contact Telkom.

I did

Curious, tell me more.

They told me to use bluetooth

Have you tried mouthwash?

quit

NOTE:

- You may assume that user input is not punctuated.

- To enable automarking, your program must use a main() function and must contain the exact set of keyword and response pairs listed above.

HINT: A string can be split into a list of constituent words by using the split() method. For example:

>>> 'the rain in spain falls mainly on the plain'.split()

['the', 'rain', 'in', 'spain', 'falls', 'mainly', 'on', 'the', 'plain']

>>>

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# noaid.py

def welcome(): print('Welcome to the automated technical support system.') print('Please describe your problem.')

def get_input(): return input().lower()

def main():

welcome() query = get_input() while (not query=='quit'): print('Curious, tell me more.')

query = get_input() main()

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Please write three different programs to answer questions10.1,10.2 & 10.3 respectively.