python code not working - reversing strings

Question

Im trying to make a function that gives a word, reverses it then sees if it has correctly reversed it. If so it prints "TEST PASSED" but I cannot get the last part to work. the code is:

def back_it_up(any_word):
  reverse = any_word[::-1]
  print(any_word)
  print(reverse)
  test = reverse[::-1]
  
  
  if any_word == test:
    return True
  else:
    return False

def test_back_it_up():
  print("")
  print("Back It Up Unit Test...")
  print("")
  if back_it_up("book") == "koob":
    print("TEST PASSED")
  else:
    print("TEST FAILED")
  if back_it_up("college") == "egelloc":
    print("TEST PASSED")
  else:
    print("TEST FAILED")
  if back_it_up("dog") == "god":
    print("TEST PASSED")
  else:
    print("TEST FAILED")
  if back_it_up("code") == "edoc":
    print("TEST PASSED")
  else:
    print("TEST FAILED")
  if back_it_up("") == "Empty String":
    print("TEST PASSED")
  else:
    print("TEST FAILED")

Answer 1

There are a couple of issues with your code...

First, the reverse function is not returning a string but a boolean. This will make your unit test to fail since you're trying to check if the return value is the reversed string. A simple solution for this is changing the function to:

def back_it_up(any_word: str) -> str:
    reverse = any_word[::-1]
    print(any_word)
    print(reverse)
    return reverse

Second, this change will solve all the testing cases but the last one. This happen because you're trying to compare an empty string "" with a string that have contents "Empty String" . This can be solved in one of two ways:

1. Replace "Empty String" by "" on the test suite.
2. Include a return condition on you reverse function to get that string when the input is empty.

Answer 2

Simply replace all the lines that say == 'string' to == True . After doing this your code ran successfully.

def back_it_up(any_word):
    reverse = any_word[::-1]
    print(any_word)
    print(reverse)
    test = reverse[::-1]

    if any_word == test:
        return True
    else:
        return False


def test_back_it_up():
    print("")
    print("Back It Up Unit Test...")
    print("")
    if back_it_up("book") == True:
        print("TEST PASSED")
    else:
        print("TEST FAILED")
    if back_it_up("college") == True:
        print("TEST PASSED")
    else:
        print("TEST FAILED")
    if back_it_up("dog") == True:
        print("TEST PASSED")
    else:
        print("TEST FAILED")
    if back_it_up("code") == True:
        print("TEST PASSED")
    else:
        print("TEST FAILED")
    if back_it_up("") == True:
        print("TEST PASSED")
    else:
        print("TEST FAILED")

test_back_it_up()

Note: I did not fully understand what if back_it_up("") == "Empty String": meant, so I just set it to True as well. Make an edit if you need. Output:

Back It Up Unit Test...

book
koob
TEST PASSED
college
egelloc
TEST PASSED
dog
god
TEST PASSED
code
edoc
TEST PASSED


TEST PASSED