Python Programming

Now that you have hopefully glanced at the documentation for str methods, what better way to practise using these methods than by applying them to a practical task?

Remember palindromes from Lesson 6? As a reminder, a palindrome is a word that reads the same forwards and backwards. Example: madam, level, rotator, noon, kayak, civic, malayalam.

You only implemented a simple version in Lesson 6 (well, at least I hope you did!), where you assumed that the input is a single word made up of lowercase letters only.

Your task is to extend the is_palindrome() function so that it also supports long phrases. Examples:

• Top spot
• Don’t nod.
• I did, did I?
• My gym
• Step on no pets
• Was it a cat I saw?
• No lemon, no melon
• Eva, can I see bees in a cave?
• Sit on a potato pan, Otis
• Able was I, ere I saw Elba.

Your function should return True for all the above. You can assume that we only consider English letters for determining whether a phrase is a palindrome, and ignore punctuations, spacing and casing.

Sample usage

>>> is_palindrome("kayak")
True
>>> is_palindrome("Step on no pets!")
True
>>> is_palindrome("Eva, can I see bees in a cave?")
True
>>> is_palindrome("Hello, my friend!")
False