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Level 0 / Project 12 - Contact Card Builder

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Concept This project — Quiz Flashcards Diagram Browser

Estimated time: 25 minutes

Focus

  • dictionary creation and formatting

Why this project exists

Parse comma-separated contact records into structured dictionaries and display them as formatted cards with box borders. You will practise string splitting, dictionary construction, and text alignment.

Run (copy/paste)

Use <repo-root> as the folder containing this repository's README.md.

cd <repo-root>/projects/level-0/12-contact-card-builder
python project.py --input data/sample_input.txt
pytest -q

Expected terminal output

=== Contact Cards ===

  +---------------------------+
  | Ada Lovelace              |
  | Phone: 555-0101           |
  | Email: ada@example.com    |
  +---------------------------+

Parsed 3 valid contacts (0 errors)
Output written to data/contacts.json
5 passed

Expected artifacts

  • data/output.json
  • Passing tests
  • Updated notes.md

Checkpoint: Baseline code runs and all tests pass. Commit your work before continuing.

Alter it (required) — Extension

  1. Add a phone number field (4th comma-separated value) to the contact card format.
  2. Add a --format flag to choose between "card" (box drawing) and "csv" (plain comma-separated) output.
  3. Re-run script and tests.

Break it (required) — Core

  1. Add a line with only a name and no email like John Smith -- does parse_contact_line() raise ValueError?
  2. Add a line with an invalid email like alice@ -- does the email validator catch it?
  3. Add a line with extra commas like Name, Role, email@test.com, , , -- what happens?

Fix it (required) — Core

  1. Ensure parse_contact_line() raises ValueError with a clear message for lines with fewer than 3 fields.
  2. Improve email validation to reject emails without a domain part.
  3. Add a test for the malformed-line edge case.

Checkpoint: All modifications done, tests still pass. Good time to review your changes.

Explain it (teach-back)

  1. Why does parse_contact_line() use .split(",") and then .strip() each part?
  2. What does the "@" in email and "." in email check actually validate (and what does it miss)?
  3. Why does format_card() use box-drawing characters for the border?
  4. Where would contact card parsing appear in real software (CRM imports, vCard generation, address books)?

Mastery check

You can move on when you can: - run baseline without docs, - explain one core function line-by-line, - break and recover in one session, - keep tests passing after your change.

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