Piglatin Word Program in Java and Python

Question:

Algorithm:

Explanation:

Piglatin conversion in this program depends on the position of the first vowel in the word. The word is first converted to uppercase because the required output is in capital letters. This also makes vowel checking easier. Once the word is uppercase, the program needs to compare each character with only A, E, I, O and U. There is no need to check lowercase vowels separately.

The variable pos is used to store the index of the first vowel. It is initialized with -1, which is not a valid index in Java strings. This value acts as a signal that no vowel has been found yet. The loop starts from the first character and moves towards the end of the word. As soon as a vowel is found, its position is stored in pos and the loop is stopped using break. Stopping immediately is important because Piglatin uses the first vowel, not any later vowel.

If a vowel is found, the word is divided into two parts. The first part begins from the first vowel and continues up to the end of the word. This is obtained using substring(pos). The second part contains all letters before the first vowel and is obtained using substring(0, pos). The Piglatin word is then formed by joining the first part, the second part and the suffix AY.

For example, in LONDON, the first vowel is O at index 1. The part from the vowel is ONDON, and the part before it is L. Joining them with AY gives ONDONLAY. In OLYMPICS, the first letter is already a vowel, so the first part is the whole word and the second part is empty. Therefore the result becomes OLYMPICSAY. If the word has no vowel, the program prints that Piglatin conversion is not possible.

Java Program:

/**
* The class Piglatin inputs a word and translates it into a Piglatin word.
* @author : www.guideforschool.com
* @Program Type : BlueJ Program - Java
* @Question Year : ICSE 2013 Question 6
*/

import java.util.Scanner;

class Piglatin
{
    public static void main(String args[])
    {
        Scanner sc = new Scanner(System.in);

        System.out.print("Enter any word: ");
        String s = sc.nextLine();

        s = s.toUpperCase();
        int l = s.length();
        int pos = -1;

        // Find the position of the first vowel.
        for(int i = 0; i < l; i++)
        {
            char ch = s.charAt(i);

            if(ch == 'A' || ch == 'E' || ch == 'I' || ch == 'O' || ch == 'U')
            {
                pos = i;
                break;
            }
        }

        if(pos != -1)
        {
            // Rearrange the word from the first vowel and add AY.
            String a = s.substring(pos);
            String b = s.substring(0, pos);
            String pig = a + b + "AY";

            System.out.println("The Piglatin of the word = " + pig);
        }
        else
        {
            System.out.println("No vowel, hence piglatin not possible");
        }
    }
}

Equivalent Python Program:

# Program to convert a word into Piglatin.

word = input("Enter any word: ")
word = word.upper()

pos = -1

# Find the position of the first vowel.
for i in range(len(word)):
    if word[i] in "AEIOU":
        pos = i
        break

if pos != -1:
    # Rearrange the word from the first vowel and add AY.
    piglatin = word[pos:] + word[:pos] + "AY"
    print("The Piglatin of the word =", piglatin)
else:
    print("No vowel, hence piglatin not possible")

Output: