How to find the first odd digit in an integer recursively - python-3.x

Question

I am new to python and am trying to get more comfortable with recursion. I am trying to find the first odd digit of a integer recursively. If there are no odd digits found return -1. Whenever I run this code I always get 35 instead of just 5.
This is what I have tried
def first_odd(n):
if n == 0:
return 0
elif n % 2 == 1:
return first_odd(n//10) * 10 + n%10
else:
return first_odd(n//10)
print(first_odd(2345))

Answer 1

If I understand your recent comment to Tarik correctly, it sounds like you want a function that will return the first odd digit scanning an integer right to left and if no odd digits are found then return -1. For example, in your original post you stated that with the integer 2345 you expected the value of 3, but based on your comment it sounds like 5 would be the correct answer scanning right to left, right? If so, then the following code should meet that description.
from random import randint
def find_rightmost_odd_digit(number):
while number:
rightmost_digit = number % 10
if rightmost_digit % 2:
return rightmost_digit
number = number // 10
return -1
for _ in range(10):
number = randint(0, 1000)
print(f"{number:>10}{find_rightmost_odd_digit(number):>4}")
Output:
387 7
88 -1
639 9
196 9
986 9
232 3
82 -1
907 7
948 9
214 1

Answer 2

You were basically on the correct track but just included an extra recursion you didn't need. Consider:
def first_odd(n):
if n == 0:
return -1
if n % 2 == 1: # number is odd, return last digit
return n % 10
return first_odd(n // 10)
If this works as intended, then I might implement it as follows to combine a couple of the divisions:
def first_odd(n):
if n == 0:
return -1
quotient, remainder = divmod(n, 10)
if remainder % 2 == 1: # remainder is odd, return it
return remainder
return first_odd(quotient)
Is there also a way to find the first odd digit from left to right
using 1 parameter?
from math import log10
def first_left_odd(n):
if n == 0:
return -1
power = 10 ** int(log10(n))
digit = n // power
if digit % 2 == 1:
return digit
return first_left_odd(n - digit * power)
Or if using the math library and/or log10() is an issue, then:
def first_left_odd(n):
if n < 10:
return n if n % 2 == 1 else -1
result = first_left_odd(n // 10)
if result != -1:
return result
return first_left_odd(n % 10)

Answer 3

Building complex programs is a matter of combining several simple programs. For this problem I would write a program that breaks a number into digits, and one that checks if any particular number is_odd -
def first_odd(n):
for d in digits(n):
if is_odd(d):
return d
return None
We can write digits and is_odd easily -
def is_odd(n):
return n & 1
def digits(n):
if n < 0:
yield from digits(n * -1)
elif n < 10:
yield n
else:
yield from digits(n // 10)
yield n % 10
print(first_odd(2345)) # 3
print(first_odd(6804721)) # 7
print(first_odd(2468)) # 9
print(first_odd(-465321)) # 5

Answer 4

This might do it:
def first_odd(n, digit):
if n == 0:
return None
elif n % 2 == 1:
return digit
else:
return first_odd(n//10, digit+1)
first_odd(2345, 0)
If you want the first digit to be 1, pass 1 instead of 0
Ok, this is for left to right:
def first_odd(n, digit):
if n == 0:
return None
pos = first_odd(n//10, digit+1)
if pos is None and n % 2 == 1:
return digit
else:
return pos