How Do You Write a Python Program to Test if Integers Are in Order?

Problem scenario
You need to write a Python program to see if a list of unique integers is in order. You can copy the list and sort it to compare the ideal state to the list provided. The program must print out a relevant message if a swap of two numbers can place those two numbers in the correct order. The program must print out if a given number is already in order.

Here are the requirements of the Python program:

• generate a list of numbers (either by random or hard-code a list)
• sort the list
• find if incorrectly placed numbers share a spot with another number that if swapped, both would be in order

Solution

import random

def diff_finder(array):
  unsorted_list = array[:]
  array.sort()
  counter = 0
  for i in range(len(array)):
    if array[i] != unsorted_list[i]:
      if unsorted_list[array.index(unsorted_list[i])] == array[i]:   
      # if the integer in this position (the array.index(unsorted_list[i]) returns the position of the value of the wrong integer),
      # is the value of the correctly-ordered integer in the sorted array
        print("ONE SWAP WOULD CORRECTLY PLACE TWO NUMBERS!")
      else:
        print("It will take more than one swap with this number to get the list in order: " + str(unsorted_list[i]) )
    else:
      print(str(array[i]) + " is in correct order")

a_list = []

for i in range(10):
  a_list.append(random.randint(1,10))

print("This list we are dealing with is " + str(a_list))
diff_finder(a_list)