Python Coding Challange - Question with Answer (01120825)

 

Let’s go step by step:

def halve_middle(nums):
 nums[1] /= 2

• This defines a function halve_middle that takes a list nums.

• nums[1] refers to the second element in the list (indexing starts at 0).

• /= 2 means divide the value by 2 and assign the result back to that same position.

• Since / in Python produces a float, the result becomes a floating-point number.

a = [8, 16, 24]

• A list a is created with three numbers: first element 8, second element 16, third element 24.

halve_middle(a)

• The function is called with a as the argument.

• Inside the function, nums refers to the same list object as a (lists are mutable).

• The second element (16) is divided by 2 → 8.0

• The list is now [8, 8.0, 24].

print(a)

• Prints [8, 8.0, 24].

• The change persists because the function modified the original list in place.

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