Python language: Basics

The FOSSEE Group

Department of Aerospace Engineering
IIT Bombay

Mumbai, India

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 1 / 44

Outline

1 Data types
Numbers
Booleans
Strings

2 Operators

3 Simple IO

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 2 / 44

 Data types

Outline

1 Data types
Numbers
Booleans
Strings

2 Operators

3 Simple IO

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 3 / 44

 Data types

Primitive Data types

Numbers: float, int, complex

Strings
Booleans

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 4 / 44

 Data types Numbers

Outline

1 Data types
Numbers
Booleans
Strings

2 Operators

3 Simple IO

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 5 / 44

 Data types Numbers

Numbers
int
whole number, no matter what the size!
In []: a = 13

In []: b = 99999999999999999999
float
In []: p = 3.141592
complex
In []: c = 3+4j
In []: c = complex(3, 4)
FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 6 / 44
 Data types Booleans

Outline

1 Data types
Numbers
Booleans
Strings

2 Operators

3 Simple IO

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 7 / 44

 Data types Booleans

Booleans

In []: t = True

In []: F = not t

In []: F or t
Out[]: True

In []: F and t
Out[]: False

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 8 / 44

 Data types Booleans

( ) for precedence

In []: a = False
In []: b = True
In []: c = True

In []: (a and b) or c
Out[]: True

In []: a and (b or c)
Out[]: False

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 9 / 44

 Data types Strings

Outline

1 Data types
Numbers
Booleans
Strings

2 Operators

3 Simple IO

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 10 / 44

 Data types Strings

Strings

Anything within “quotes” is a string!

’ This is a string ’
" This too! "
""" This one too! """
’’’ And one more! ’’’

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 11 / 44

 Data types Strings

Strings

Why so many?
’ "Do or do not. No try." said Yoda.’
" ’ is a mighty lonely quote."
The triple quoted ones can span multiple lines!
""" The quick brown
fox jumped over
the lazy dingbat.
"""

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 12 / 44

 Data types Strings

Strings

In []: w = "hello"

In []: print(w[0], w[1], w[-1])

In []: len(w)
Out[]: 5

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 13 / 44

 Data types Strings

Strings . . .

Strings are immutable

In []: w[0] = ’H’

-----------------------------------------
TypeError Traceback (most recent call la

<ipython console> in <module>()

TypeError: ’str’ object does not

support item assignment

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 14 / 44

 Data types Strings

Strings . . .

Strings are immutable

In []: w[0] = ’H’

-----------------------------------------
TypeError Traceback (most recent call la

<ipython console> in <module>()

TypeError: ’str’ object does not

support item assignment

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 14 / 44

 Data types Strings

Finding the type

In []: a = 1.0
In []: type(a)
Out[]: float
In []: type(1)
Out[]: int

In []: type(1+1j)
Out[]: complex

In []: type(’hello’)
Out[]: str

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 15 / 44

 Operators

Outline

1 Data types
Numbers
Booleans
Strings

2 Operators

3 Simple IO

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 16 / 44

 Operators

Arithmetic operators
In []: 1786 % 12
Out[]: 10

In []: 45 % 2
Out[]: 1

In []: 864675 % 10
Out[]: 5

In []: 3124 * 126789

Out[]: 396088836

In []: big = 1234567891234567890 ** 3

In []: verybig = big * big * big * big

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 17 / 44
 Operators

Arithmetic operators

In []: 17 / 2
Out[]: 8.5 # 8 on Python 2.x

In []: 17 / 2.0
Out[]: 8.5

In []: 17.0 / 2
Out[]: 8.5

In []: 17.0 / 8.5

Out[]: 2.0

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 18 / 44

 Operators

Arithmetic operators: floor division

In []: 17 // 2
Out[]: 8

In []: 17 // 2.0
Out[]: 8.0

In []: 17.0 // 2.0

Out[]: 8.0

In []: 17.0 // 8.6

Out[]: 1.0

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 19 / 44

 Operators

Arithmetic operators
In []: c = 3+4j

In []: abs(c)
Out[]: 5.0

In []: c.imag
Out[]: 4.0
In []: c.real
Out[]: 3.0

In []: c.conjugate()
(3-4j)
FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 20 / 44
 Operators

Arithmetic operators
In []: a = 7546

In []: a += 1
In []: a
Out[]: 7547

In []: a -= 5
In []: a

In []: a *= 2

In []: a /= 5
FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 21 / 44
 Operators

String operations

In []: s = ’Hello’

In []: p = ’World’

In []: s + p
Out[]: ’HelloWorld’

In []: s * 4
Out[]: ’HelloHelloHelloHello’

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 22 / 44

 Operators

String operations . . .

In []: s * s

-----------------------------------------
TypeError Traceback (most recent call la

<ipython console> in <module>()

TypeError: can‘t multiply sequence by

non-int of type ‘str‘

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 23 / 44

 Operators

String operations . . .

In []: s * s

-----------------------------------------
TypeError Traceback (most recent call la

<ipython console> in <module>()

TypeError: can‘t multiply sequence by

non-int of type ‘str‘

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 23 / 44

 Operators

String methods
In []: a = ’Hello World’
In []: a.startswith(’Hell’)
Out[]: True

In []: a.endswith(’ld’)
Out[]: True

In []: a.upper()
Out[]: ’HELLO WORLD’

In []: a.lower()
Out[]: ’hello world’
FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 24 / 44
 Operators

String methods

In []: a = ’ Hello World ’

In []: b = a.strip()
In []: b
Out[]: ’Hello World’

In []: b.index(’ll’)
Out[]: 2
In []: b.replace(’Hello’, ’Goodbye’)
Out[]: ’Goodbye World’

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 25 / 44

 Operators

Strings: split & join

In []: chars = ’a b c’
In []: chars.split()
Out[]: [’a’, ’b’, ’c’]
In []: ’ ’.join([’a’, ’b’, ’c’])
Out[]: ’a b c’

In []: alpha = ’, ’.join([’a’, ’b’, ’c’])

In []: alpha
Out[]: ’a, b, c’
In []: alpha.split(’, ’)
Out[]: [’a’, ’b’, ’c’]

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 26 / 44

 Operators

String formatting

In []: x, y = 1, 1.234

In []: ’x is %s, y is %s’ %(x, y)

Out[]: ’x is 1, y is 1.234’

%d, %f etc. available

http://docs.python.org/library/
stdtypes.html

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 27 / 44

 Operators

Relational and logical operators

In []: p, z, n = 1, 0, -1
In []: p == n
Out[]: False

In []: p >= n
Out[]: True

In []: n < z < p

Out[]: True

In []: p + n != z
Out[]: False
FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 28 / 44
 Operators

The assert statement

You will see it in tests and your exam!

In []: assert p != n
In []: assert p == n
-------------------------------------------------
AssertionError Traceback (most recent call l
----> 1 assert p == n

AssertionError:

No error if condition is True

Raises error if False

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 29 / 44

 Operators

assert examples

In []: assert p == n, "Oops condition failed"

-------------------------------------------------
AssertionError Traceback (most recent call l
----> 1 assert p == n

AssertionError: Oops condition failed

Can supply an optional message

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 30 / 44

 Operators

String containership

In []: fruits = ’apple, banana, pear’

In []: ’apple’ in fruits
Out[]: True

In []: ’potato’ in fruits

Out[]: False

Use tab complete to list other string methods

Use ? to find more information

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 31 / 44

 Operators

Built-ins

In []: int(17 / 2.0)

Out[]: 8

In []: float(17 // 2)
Out[]: 8.0

In []: str(17 / 2.0)

Out[]: ’8.5’

In []: round( 7.5 )

Out[]: 8.0

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 32 / 44

 Operators

Odds and ends

Case sensitive
Dynamically typed ⇒ need not specify a type
In []: a = 1
In []: a = 1.1
In []: a = "Now I am a string!"
Comments:
In []: a = 1 # In-line comments
In []: # A comment line.
In []: a = "# Not a comment!"

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 33 / 44

 Operators

Exercise 1

Given a 2 digit integer x, find the digits of the number.

For example, let us say x = 38

Find a way to get a = 3 and b = 8 using x?

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 34 / 44

 Operators

Possible Solution

In []: a = x//10
In []: b = x%10
In []: a*10 + b == x

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 35 / 44

 Operators

Another Solution

In []: sx = str(x)
In []: a = int(sx[0]])
In []: b = int(sx[1]])
In []: a*10 + b == x

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 36 / 44

 Operators

Exercise 2

Given an arbitrary integer, count the number of digits it

has.

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 37 / 44

 Operators

Possible solution

In []: x = 12345678
In []: len(str(x))
Sneaky solution!

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 38 / 44

 Simple IO

Outline

1 Data types
Numbers
Booleans
Strings

2 Operators

3 Simple IO

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 39 / 44

 Simple IO

Simple IO: Console Input

input() waits for user input.
In []: a = input()
5

In []: a
Out[]: ’5’

In []: a = input(’Enter a value: ’)

Enter a value: 5

Prompt string is optional.

All keystrokes are strings!
int() converts string to int.
FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 40 / 44
 Simple IO

Simple IO: Python 2.x vs 3.x

print is familiar to us
Changed from Python 2.x to 3.x
We use the Python 3 convention here

If on Python 2.x do this:

In []: from __future__ import print_function

Safe to use in Python 3.x also

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 41 / 44

 Simple IO

Simple IO: Console output

Put the following code snippet in a file hello1.py

print("Hello", "World")
print("Goodbye", "World")
Now run it like so:
In []: %run hello1.py
Hello World
Goodbye World

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 42 / 44

 Simple IO

Simple IO: Console output . . .

Put the following code snippet in a file hello2.py
print("Hello", end=’ ’)
print("World")
Now run it like so:
In []: %run hello2.py
Hello World

Mini Exercise
Read docs for print
Remember: use print?

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 43 / 44

 Simple IO

Simple IO: Console output . . .

Put the following code snippet in a file hello2.py
print("Hello", end=’ ’)
print("World")
Now run it like so:
In []: %run hello2.py
Hello World

Mini Exercise
Read docs for print
Remember: use print?

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 43 / 44

 Simple IO

What did we learn?

Data types: int, float, complex, boolean, string

Operators: +, -, *, /, %, **, +=, -=, *=, /=, >, <, <=,
>=, ==, !=, a < b < c
Simple IO: input and print

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 44 / 44

 Simple IO

Homework

Explore the various string methods

Read the documentation for the string methods
Explore the different builtins seen so far also

FOSSEE Team (FOSSEE – IITB) Basic Python 45 / 44