# input_topic.py # Input Design # This script is designed to take user input for a topic or a keyword and validate it before using it in a news summarization application. def get_topic(): topic = input("Enter a topic to search for news articles: ") if not topic: print("No topic provided. Please enter a valid topic.") return None if len(topic) > 100: # Arbitrary limit for topic length print("Topic is too long. Please enter a shorter topic.") return None if not topic.isascii(): print("Topic contains non-ASCII characters. Please use only ASCII characters.") return None if not topic.isprintable(): print("Topic contains non-printable characters. Please use only printable characters.") return None if topic[0].isdigit(): print("Topic should not start with a digit. Please enter a valid topic.") return None if topic[0] == ' ': print("Topic should not start with a space. Please enter a valid topic.") return None # Normalize the input to lowercase and strip any leading/trailing whitespace. topic = topic.lower().strip() # Check for special characters and replace them with spaces. special_chars = ['!', '@', '#', '$', '%', '^', '&', '*', '(', ')', '-', '_', '=', '+', '{', '}', '[', ']', '|', ':', ';', '"', "'", '<', '>', ',', '.', '?', '/', '\\'] for char in special_chars: topic = topic.replace(char, ' ') # Remove extra spaces topic = ' '.join(topic.split()) # Check if the topic is empty after normalization if not topic: print("Topic is empty after normalization. Please enter a valid topic.") return None # Check for common stop words and remove them stop_words = ['the', 'is', 'in', 'and', 'to', 'a', 'of', 'for', 'on', 'with', 'as', 'by', 'this', 'that'] topic_words = topic.split() topic = ' '.join([word for word in topic_words if word not in stop_words]) # Check if the topic is empty after removing stop words if not topic: print("Topic is empty after removing stop words. Please enter a valid topic.") return None return topic