This is a repl.it problem I have been working on for the past 6 hours and as far as I can tell my code works properly from the output point of view. for example if I input 56789 my program outputs 5 7 9. Repl.it tests fail every time and tell me my output is 56789 when theirs is 5 7 9. If I define the input as a specified list instead of a user input then repl.it passes the first test and fails the second....because it indicates that the program fails with a new set of numbers. So I know stack overflow is not repl.it but not finding any help there. note...I am sure my code is clunky and inefficient but I am still learning how to walk here
def picky():
    position = 0
    a = input("") #input asking for a number  
    b = list(a)   #converts my input into a list
    c = []        #list for storing even index values
    d = []        #list for converting c to string
    while position <= len(b):
        if position % 2 == 0:
            c += b[position]
        position += 1    
    for x in c: 
        d += str(x)
    preOutput = str(d).strip('[]').replace('\'','').replace(',','')  
    # removes brackets, commas, and quotes from output.
    print(preOutput)  
picky() 
using 3.6.4
 
    