What is this challenge asking me to do?

I guess what confused me was the fact that during the previous training video, the class, which was capitalized, corresponded to a database Model. In the training video, we had the Model definition inside the same file. In addition, while completing the Challenge or quiz, by not including the model in the file and not asking me to create the Model in the quiz, I am not able to see the model definition. For me, when I import a module, I want to know and be able to reference the API, as it were.

It was either on this question or another one, where I submitted my answer and Python said "I need integer indices and not str indices. It would help to have a reference to the Challenge class, so I could see what is being imported. I hope my feedback makes sense. Thanks, Bruce

Dumb question, but how or why does steps=1 signify the argument being optional. Was this is a previous video somewhere? It seems as though that was pulled out of thin air, but then again I have a bad memory especially if its not something I'm using over and over again. Is there a quick and easy documentation to read up on. I try to look at the docs but searching stuff like that seems to always drag you through a large amount of stuff your not looking for.

def create_challenge(name, lang, steps=1): #<-- add default of 1 to steps argument
    Challenge.create(
        name=name,
        language=lang, #<--Why the change here?
        steps=steps)

Just out of Curiosity? Why the different naming convention when making the object. I spelled out language and the code challenge accepted it! I also ran it your way noted here and it worked as well.

Is this just something you like to do, I only ask because the challenge specifically stated " name, language, steps". I'm guessing if you ran something like:

def create_challenge(name, lang, steps=1): #<-- add default of 1 to steps argument
    Challenge.create(
        name=name,
        lang=lang, #<--Why not the change here?
        steps=steps)

It probably wouldn't accept it because the Model is different. Am I correct in assuming that?

Chris Grazioli, good questions!

> how or why does steps=1 signify the argument being optional

The presence of a the default value =1 indicates that if a third parameter is not supplied to the function, the local variable steps will be assigned to 1.

> Why the different naming convention when making the object.... Is this just something you like to do, I only ask because the challenge specifically stated " name, language, steps".

While at first it looks like my coding was lazy or sloppy, it raises a valid point: positional argument names can be anything you wish and the code will still work. Saying this another way, the task description says "create a function... that takes name, language, and steps as arguments" means the function will be called with arguments referencing objects for a name, a language, and optionally a step value, but the receiving parameter names do not literally need to match. The function will "take it" but it can call the local reference whatever it wants. The parameter names become the local variable references to the passed arguments.

As for the arguments in the call to Challenge.create(), "name", "language", and "steps" are keyword arguments for the create method and must match the attributes of the Challenge class.

This will also pass the challenge:

def create_challenge(thing1, thing2, thing3=1):
    Challenge.create(
        name=thing1,
        language=thing2,  # <-- "language" must match class attribute 
        steps=thing3)

It's optional in the sense that it is not required to be specified in the function call. Your idea of calling it a default value the caller can change is a valid perspective.

Setting a parameter default to None is used often. The body of the function can then test for its value:

def some_func(thing1, thing2, thing3=None):
    if thing3:
        # code related to thing3
    # remainder of the function code