Basic formatting
Input
Contact('john','doe').display_name
Output
John Doe
Both parts are trimmed and title-cased, then joined with a space.
Full lesson preview
Use a Property to Format Display Output
Learn how to use the @property decorator to expose a computed, read-only attribute that formats instance data for display.
Python practice15 minMethods & PropertiesIntermediateLast updated April 7, 2026
Problem statement
Create a Contact class that stores first_name and last_name. Implement a read-only property called display_name that:
- Strips surrounding whitespace from each name part.
- Ignores empty parts (so if first or last is empty, it doesn't produce extra spaces).
- Title-cases each name part (use Python's title-casing behavior).
- Joins the non-empty parts with a single space and returns the resulting string.
This property should allow consumers to access a nicely formatted display name as contact.display_name without calling a separate method.
Task
Implement a display_name property that returns a clean, title-cased display string joining first and last name while handling extra whitespace and empty parts.
Examples
Input format
An expression that constructs a Contact and reads the display_name property, e.g. Contact('john','doe').display_name
Output format
A single string with the formatted name, e.g. 'John Doe'.
Constraints
- Do not modify attributes in-place; compute the formatted value when the property is accessed.
- Handle None or empty-string gracefully by ignoring those parts.
- Use Python string methods; no external libraries.
Samples
Sample 1
Input
Contact(' mary ','ANN ').display_name
Output
Mary Ann
Leading/trailing whitespace removed and both parts title-cased.