Return to Answer

def needs_lower(text):
    pass

def needs_upper(text):
    pass

def needs_digit(text):
    pass

def needs_extra_chars(text):
    pass

def needs_special(text):
    pass

Now, Python has a string module that is (semi)deprecated, but that has some still useful things, namely, string.ascii_lowercase, string.ascii_uppercase, and string.digit. We can use these in the implementations for some of our functions. Let's just write them as simply as possible for now.

import string

def needs_lower(text):
    for char in text:
        if char in string.ascii_lowercase:
            return 0
    return 1

def needs_upper(text):
    for char in text:
        if char in string.ascii_uppercase:
            return 0
    return 1

def needs_digit(text):
    for char in text:
        if char in string.digits:
            return True
    return False

def needs_any(text, values):
    for char in text:
        if char in values:
            return True
    return False

def needs_lower(text):
    return needs_any(text, string.ascii_lowercase)

And similarly for the needs_upper and needs_digit.

SPECIAL_CHARS = '!@#$%^&*()-+'

def needs_special(text):
    return needs_any(text, SPECIAL_CHARS)

The last function we need to implement is needs_extra_chars:

MINIMUM_LENGTH = 6

def needs_extra_chars(text):
    if len(text) >= MINIMUM_LENGTH:
        return 0
    return MINIMUM_LENGTH - len(text)

Now we can stitch these all together within minimumNumber:

def minimumNumber(n, password):
    # I'm not really sure why there's a n passed in as well?
    test_functions = [needs_lower, needs_upper,
                      needs_digit, needs_special,
                      needs_extra_chars]
    extra_required = sum([test_fn(password) for test_fn in test_functions])
    return extra_required

def lower_required(text):
    pass

def upper_required(text):
    pass

def digits_required(text):
    pass

def length_required(text):
    pass

def special_required(text):
    pass

Now, Python has a string module that is (semi)deprecated (much of what was in it is now on string objects themselves), but that has some still useful things, namely, string.ascii_lowercase, string.ascii_uppercase, and string.digit. We can use these in the implementations for some of our functions. Let's just write them as simply as possible for now.

import string

def lower_required(text):
    for char in text:
        if char in string.ascii_lowercase:
            return 0
    return 1

def upper_required(text):
    for char in text:
        if char in string.ascii_uppercase:
            return 0
    return 1

def digit_required(text):
    for char in text:
        if char in string.digits:
            return 0
    return 1

def num_required(text, characters):
    if any((x in characters for x in text)):
        return 0
    return 1

def lower_required(text):
    return num_required(text, string.ascii_lowercase)

And similarly for the upper_required and digit_required.

SPECIAL_CHARS = '!@#$%^&*()-+'

def special_required(text):
    return num_required(text, SPECIAL_CHARS)

The last function we need to implement is length_required:

MINIMUM_LENGTH = 6

def length_required(text):
    if len(text) >= MINIMUM_LENGTH:
        return 0
    return MINIMUM_LENGTH - len(text)

Now we can stitch these all together within minimumNumber (note that Python functions should be named using snake_case, so it should be minimum_number here - but I assume this function name was given to you, so I won't harp on about it too much).

def minimumNumber(text):
    test_functions = [lower_required, upper_required,
                      digits_required, special_required]
    min_chars_required = sum([test_fn(text) for test_fn in test_functions])
    missing_length = length_required(text)
    if missing_length > min_chars_required:
        return missing_length
    return min_chars_required

def needs_lower(text):
    return needs_any(text, string.ascii_lower)

def needs_lower(text):
    return needs_any(text, string.ascii_lowercase)

def minimumNumber(n, password):
    # I'm not really sure why there's a n passed in as well?
    test_functions = [needs_lower, needs_upper,
                      needs_digit, needs_extra_chars,
                      contains_special]
    extra_required = sum([test_fn(password) for test_fn in test_functions])
    return extra_required

def minimumNumber(n, password):
    # I'm not really sure why there's a n passed in as well?
    test_functions = [needs_lower, needs_upper,
                      needs_digit, needs_special,
                      needs_extra_chars]
    extra_required = sum([test_fn(password) for test_fn in test_functions])
    return extra_required