IntroductionToCourse

June 22, 2021

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1 The Python Programming Language: Functions

[1]: x = 1
y = 2
x + y
[1]: 3
[2]: y
[2]: 2
add_numbers is a function that takes two numbers and adds them together.
[3]: def add_numbers(x, y):
return x + y

add_numbers(1, 2)
[3]: 3
‘add_numbers’ updated to take an optional 3rd parameter. Using print allows printing of
multiple expressions within a single cell.
[4]: def add_numbers(x,y,z=None):
if (z==None):
return x+y
else:
return x+y+z

print(add_numbers(1, 2))
print(add_numbers(1, 2, 3))

3
6

1
 add_numbers updated to take an optional flag parameter.
[5]: def add_numbers(x, y, z=None, flag=False):
if (flag):
print('Flag is true!')
if (z==None):
return x + y
else:
return x + y + z

print(add_numbers(1, 2, flag=True))

Flag is true!
3
Assign function add_numbers to variable a.
[6]: def add_numbers(x,y):
return x+y

a = add_numbers
a(1,2)
[6]: 3

2 The Python Programming Language: Types and Sequences

Use type to return the object’s type.
[7]: type('This is a string')
[7]: str
[8]: type(None)
[8]: NoneType
[9]: type(1)
[9]: int
[10]: type(1.0)
[10]: float
[11]: type(add_numbers)
[11]: function
Tuples are an immutable data structure (cannot be altered).
[12]: x = (1, 'a', 2, 'b')
type(x)
[12]: tuple
Lists are a mutable data structure.

2
[13]: x = [1, 'a', 2, 'b']
type(x)
[13]: list
Use append to append an object to a list.
[14]: x.append(3.3)
print(x)

[1, 'a', 2, 'b', 3.3]

This is an example of how to loop through each item in the list.

[15]: for item in x:
print(item)

1
a
2
b
3.3

Or using the indexing operator:

[16]: i=0
while( i != len(x) ):
print(x[i])
i = i + 1

1
a
2
b
3.3

Use + to concatenate lists.

[17]: [1,2] + [3,4]
[17]: [1, 2, 3, 4]
Use * to repeat lists.
[18]: [1]*3
[18]: [1, 1, 1]
Use the in operator to check if something is inside a list.
[19]: 1 in [1, 2, 3]
[19]: True
Now let’s look at strings. Use bracket notation to slice a string.

3
[20]: x = 'This is a string'
print(x[0]) #first character
print(x[0:1]) #first character, but we have explicitly set the end character
print(x[0:2]) #first two characters

T
T
Th

This will return the last element of the string.

[21]: x[-1]
[21]: 'g'
This will return the slice starting from the 4th element from the end and stopping before the
2nd element from the end.
[22]: x[-4:-2]
[22]: 'ri'
This is a slice from the beginning of the string and stopping before the 3rd element.
[23]: x[:3]
[23]: 'Thi'
And this is a slice starting from the 4th element of the string and going all the way to the end.
[24]: x[3:]
[24]: 's is a string'
[25]: firstname = 'Christopher'
lastname = 'Brooks'

print(firstname + ' ' + lastname)

print(firstname*3)
print('Chris' in firstname)

Christopher Brooks
ChristopherChristopherChristopher
True

split returns a list of all the words in a string, or a list split on a specific character.
[26]: firstname = 'Christopher Arthur Hansen Brooks'.split(' ')[0] # [0] selects the␣
,→first element of the list

lastname = 'Christopher Arthur Hansen Brooks'.split(' ')[-1] # [-1] selects the␣

,→last element of the list

print(firstname)
print(lastname)

Christopher
Brooks

4
 Make sure you convert objects to strings before concatenating.
[27]: 'Chris' + 2

␣
,→ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

TypeError Traceback (most recent call␣

,→ last)

<ipython-input-27-9d01956b24db> in <module>
----> 1 'Chris' + 2

TypeError: can only concatenate str (not "int") to str

[ ]: 'Chris' + str(2)
Dictionaries associate keys with values.
[ ]: x = {'Christopher Brooks': '[email protected]', 'Bill Gates': 'billg@microsoft.
,→com'}

x['Christopher Brooks'] # Retrieve a value by using the indexing operator

[ ]: x['Kevyn Collins-Thompson'] = None
x['Kevyn Collins-Thompson']
Iterate over all of the keys:
[28]: for name in x:
print(x[name])

␣
,→---------------------------------------------------------------------------

TypeError Traceback (most recent call␣

,→ last)

<ipython-input-28-54a8dcce786c> in <module>
1 for name in x:
----> 2 print(x[name])

TypeError: string indices must be integers

Iterate over all of the values:

5
 [ ]: for email in x.values():
print(email)
Iterate over all of the items in the list:
[ ]: for name, email in x.items():
print(name)
print(email)
You can unpack a sequence into different variables:
[ ]: x = ('Christopher', 'Brooks', '[email protected]')
fname, lname, email = x
[ ]: fname
[ ]: lname
Make sure the number of values you are unpacking matches the number of variables being
assigned.
[ ]: x = ('Christopher', 'Brooks', '[email protected]', 'Ann Arbor')
fname, lname, email = x

3 The Python Programming Language: More on Strings

[33]: print('Chris' + 2)

␣
,→---------------------------------------------------------------------------

TypeError Traceback (most recent call␣

,→ last)

<ipython-input-33-928a1e955b60> in <module>
----> 1 print('Chris' + 2)

TypeError: can only concatenate str (not "int") to str

[34]: print('Chris' + str(2))

Chris2

Python has a built in method for convenient string formatting.

[ ]: sales_record = {
'price': 3.24,
'num_items': 4,

6
 'person': 'Chris'}

sales_statement = '{} bought {} item(s) at a price of {} each for a total of {}'

print(sales_statement.format(sales_record['person'],
sales_record['num_items'],
sales_record['price'],
sales_record['num_items']*sales_record['price']))

4 Reading and Writing CSV files

Let’s import our datafile mpg.csv, which contains fuel economy data for 234 cars.

• mpg : miles per gallon

• class : car classification
• cty : city mpg
• cyl : # of cylinders
• displ : engine displacement in liters
• drv : f = front-wheel drive, r = rear wheel drive, 4 = 4wd
• fl : fuel (e = ethanol E85, d = diesel, r = regular, p = premium, c = CNG)
• hwy : highway mpg
• manufacturer : automobile manufacturer
• model : model of car
• trans : type of transmission
• year : model year

[29]: import csv

%precision 2

with open('mpg.csv') as csvfile:

mpg = list(csv.DictReader(csvfile))

mpg[:3] # The first three dictionaries in our list.

␣
,→ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

FileNotFoundError Traceback (most recent call␣

,→ last)

<ipython-input-29-9d52614e743e> in <module>
3 get_ipython().run_line_magic('precision', '2')
4
----> 5 with open('mpg.csv') as csvfile:

7
 6 mpg = list(csv.DictReader(csvfile))
7

FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'mpg.csv'

csv.Dictreader has read in each row of our csv file as a dictionary. len shows that our list is
comprised of 234 dictionaries.
[ ]: len(mpg)
keys gives us the column names of our csv.
[ ]: mpg[0].keys()
This is how to find the average cty fuel economy across all cars. All values in the dictionaries
are strings, so we need to convert to float.
[ ]: sum(float(d['cty']) for d in mpg) / len(mpg)
Similarly this is how to find the average hwy fuel economy across all cars.
[ ]: sum(float(d['hwy']) for d in mpg) / len(mpg)
Use set to return the unique values for the number of cylinders the cars in our dataset have.
[30]: cylinders = set(d['cyl'] for d in mpg)
cylinders

␣
,→---------------------------------------------------------------------------

NameError Traceback (most recent call␣

,→ last)

<ipython-input-30-3bcce509dbc3> in <module>
----> 1 cylinders = set(d['cyl'] for d in mpg)
2 cylinders

NameError: name 'mpg' is not defined

Here’s a more complex example where we are grouping the cars by number of cylinder, and
finding the average cty mpg for each group.
[ ]: CtyMpgByCyl = []

for c in cylinders: # iterate over all the cylinder levels

summpg = 0
cyltypecount = 0
for d in mpg: # iterate over all dictionaries

8
 if d['cyl'] == c: # if the cylinder level type matches,
summpg += float(d['cty']) # add the cty mpg
cyltypecount += 1 # increment the count
CtyMpgByCyl.append((c, summpg / cyltypecount)) # append the tuple␣
,→('cylinder', 'avg mpg')

CtyMpgByCyl.sort(key=lambda x: x[0])
CtyMpgByCyl
Use set to return the unique values for the class types in our dataset.
[ ]: vehicleclass = set(d['class'] for d in mpg) # what are the class types
vehicleclass
And here’s an example of how to find the average hwy mpg for each class of vehicle in our
dataset.
[ ]: HwyMpgByClass = []

for t in vehicleclass: # iterate over all the vehicle classes

summpg = 0
vclasscount = 0
for d in mpg: # iterate over all dictionaries
if d['class'] == t: # if the cylinder amount type matches,
summpg += float(d['hwy']) # add the hwy mpg
vclasscount += 1 # increment the count
HwyMpgByClass.append((t, summpg / vclasscount)) # append the tuple␣
,→('class', 'avg mpg')

HwyMpgByClass.sort(key=lambda x: x[1])
HwyMpgByClass

5 The Python Programming Language: Dates and Times

[ ]: import datetime as dt
import time as tm
time returns the current time in seconds since the Epoch. (January 1st, 1970)
[31]: tm.time()

␣
,→---------------------------------------------------------------------------

NameError Traceback (most recent call␣

,→ last)

<ipython-input-31-f6000a133ef6> in <module>

9
 ----> 1 tm.time()

NameError: name 'tm' is not defined

Convert the timestamp to datetime.

[ ]: dtnow = dt.datetime.fromtimestamp(tm.time())
dtnow
Handy datetime attributes:
[ ]: dtnow.year, dtnow.month, dtnow.day, dtnow.hour, dtnow.minute, dtnow.second #␣
,→get year, month, day, etc.from a datetime

timedelta is a duration expressing the difference between two dates.

[ ]: delta = dt.timedelta(days = 100) # create a timedelta of 100 days
delta
date.today returns the current local date.
[ ]: today = dt.date.today()
[ ]: today - delta # the date 100 days ago
[ ]: today > today-delta # compare dates

6 The Python Programming Language: Objects and map()

An example of a class in python:
[ ]: class Person:
department = 'School of Information' #a class variable

def set_name(self, new_name): #a method

self.name = new_name
def set_location(self, new_location):
self.location = new_location
[ ]: person = Person()
person.set_name('Christopher Brooks')
person.set_location('Ann Arbor, MI, USA')
print('{} live in {} and works in the department {}'.format(person.name, person.
,→location, person.department))

Here’s an example of mapping the min function between two lists.

[ ]: store1 = [10.00, 11.00, 12.34, 2.34]
store2 = [9.00, 11.10, 12.34, 2.01]
cheapest = map(min, store1, store2)
cheapest
Now let’s iterate through the map object to see the values.

10
[32]: for item in cheapest:
print(item)

␣
,→ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

NameError Traceback (most recent call␣

,→ last)

<ipython-input-32-d5907a436dfb> in <module>
----> 1 for item in cheapest:
2 print(item)

NameError: name 'cheapest' is not defined

7 The Python Programming Language: Lambda and List Comprehen-

sions
Here’s an example of lambda that takes in three parameters and adds the first two.
[ ]: my_function = lambda a, b, c : a + b
[ ]: my_function(1, 2, 3)
Let’s iterate from 0 to 999 and return the even numbers.
[ ]: my_list = []
for number in range(0, 1000):
if number % 2 == 0:
my_list.append(number)
my_list
Now the same thing but with list comprehension.
[ ]: my_list = [number for number in range(0,1000) if number % 2 == 0]
my_list

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