# Trinary Convert a trinary number, represented as a string (e.g. '102012'), to its decimal equivalent using first principles. The program should consider strings specifying an invalid trinary as the value 0. Trinary numbers contain three symbols: 0, 1, and 2. The last place in a trinary number is the 1's place. The second to last is the 3's place, the third to last is the 9's place, etc. ```shell # "102012" 1 0 2 0 1 2 # the number 1*3^5 + 0*3^4 + 2*3^3 + 0*3^2 + 1*3^1 + 2*3^0 # the value 243 + 0 + 54 + 0 + 3 + 2 = 302 ``` If your language provides a method in the standard library to perform the conversion, pretend it doesn't exist and implement it yourself. ## Exception messages Sometimes it is necessary to raise an exception. When you do this, you should include a meaningful error message to indicate what the source of the error is. This makes your code more readable and helps significantly with debugging. Not every exercise will require you to raise an exception, but for those that do, the tests will only pass if you include a message. To raise a message with an exception, just write it as an argument to the exception type. For example, instead of `raise Exception`, you should write: ```python raise Exception("Meaningful message indicating the source of the error") ``` ## Running the tests To run the tests, run the appropriate command below ([why they are different](https://github.com/pytest-dev/pytest/issues/1629#issue-161422224)): - Python 2.7: `py.test trinary_test.py` - Python 3.4+: `pytest trinary_test.py` Alternatively, you can tell Python to run the pytest module (allowing the same command to be used regardless of Python version): `python -m pytest trinary_test.py` ### Common `pytest` options - `-v` : enable verbose output - `-x` : stop running tests on first failure - `--ff` : run failures from previous test before running other test cases For other options, see `python -m pytest -h` ## Submitting Exercises Note that, when trying to submit an exercise, make sure the solution is in the `$EXERCISM_WORKSPACE/python/trinary` directory. You can find your Exercism workspace by running `exercism debug` and looking for the line that starts with `Workspace`. For more detailed information about running tests, code style and linting, please see the [help page](http://exercism.io/languages/python). ## Source All of Computer Science [http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=binary&a=*C.binary-_*MathWorld-](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=binary&a=*C.binary-_*MathWorld-) ## Submitting Incomplete Solutions It's possible to submit an incomplete solution so you can see how others have completed the exercise.