Yes, like a lot of people did using "json.dumps". You just create a non-organized string from a very exploitable native python dictionary.

Very naughty! It would have been interesting to actually have a json representation of the data as a string, 'json.loads' it and get data from it. Here we already have a parsed structure native to python, it's a complete non-sense!

Mathematically, it the same, but sometimes, we lose sense with over-refactoring.

Your answer is really clear and your replacement of basis is smart, you explained me my algorithm after 2 years of forgetting, thank you :)

Duly noted, sir :)

I'm always reluctant to use external dependancies for simple programs :/

With Counter, you can use "cb[char]" and get 0 if char is not in cb without exception, no need to use the failsafe .get(, 0)

No, but 547 is the closest solution to 500.

<Create a function that given an integer n and the order k, will output the higher and closest forgiving number to n of order k>

In this exercise, it's neither needed nor recommanded to store all the values.

It's a better practice to use 'is' operator than '_ _eq _ _' (i.e. '==' and '!='), which can be overwritten and provoke weird behaviour.

Very elegant

Codes are written for a certain context with according tests.
If you want to take into account any possible weird input, the work is not the same!