Chapter 1: Basic Python

Programming
Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except
for use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Learning Objectives (1 of 2)

• Write a simple Python program using its basic structure

• Perform simple input and output operations
• Perform operations with numbers such as arithmetic and
comparisons
• Perform operations with Boolean values
• Implement an algorithm using the basic constructs of sequences
of statements, selection statements, and loops
• Define functions to structure code

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Learning Objectives (2 of 2)

• Use built-in data structures such as strings, files, lists, tuples,

and dictionaries
• Define classes to represent new types of objects
• Structure programs in terms of cooperating functions, data
structures, classes, and modules

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Basic Program Elements

• Python has a vast array of features and constructs

• Basic program elements are quite simple

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Programs and Modules

• Python programs consist of one or more modules

• Module: a file of Python code
• Can include statements, function definitions, and class definitions
• Script: a short Python program
• Can be contained in one module
• Longer programs typically include
• One main module and one or more supporting modules
• Main module
• Contains starting point of program execution
• Supporting modules
• Contain function and class definitions

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
An Example Python Program: Guessing a
Number (1 of 2)

>"""
Author: Ken Lambert
Plays a game of guess the number with the user.
"""
import random
def main():
"""Inputs the bounds of the range of numbers
and lets the user guess the computer’s number until
the guess is correct."""
smaller = int(input("Enter the smaller number: "))
larger = int(input("Enter the larger number: "))
myNumber = random.randint(smaller, larger)
count = 0
while True:
count += 1
userNumber = int(input("Enter your guess: "))
if userNumber < myNumber:
print("Too small")
elif userNumber > myNumber:
print("Too large")
else:
print("You’ve got it in", count, "tries!")
break
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
An Example Python Program: Guessing a
Number (2 of 2)

• Here is a trace of a user’s interaction with the program:

• Enter the smaller number: 1
• Enter the larger number: 32
• Enter your guess: 16
• Too small
• Enter your guess: 24
• Too large
• Enter your guess: 20
• You’ve got it in 3 tries!

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Editing, Compiling, and Running Python
Programs (1 of 2)

• To run the program contained in the file numberguess.py, enter

the following command in most terminal windows:
• python3 numberguess.py
• To create or edit a Python module, use Python’s IDLE:
• Enter the idle or idle3 command at a terminal prompt or click icon
• You can also launch IDLE by
• Double-clicking on a Python source code file
• Right-clicking on the file and selecting Open or Edit with IDLE

• IDLE gives you a shell window for interactively running Python

expressions and statements:
• IDLE also formats your code and color-codes it

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Editing, Compiling, and Running Python
Programs (2 of 2)

• To run a program within IDLE

• Move the cursor into the editor window and press the F5 key
• Python compiles the code in the editor window and runs it in the
shell window
• If a Python program appears to hand or not quit normally,
• Exit by pressing Ctrl+C or close the shell window

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Program Contents

• Program comment
• Text ignored by the Python compiler
• Valuable to the reader as documentation
• End-of-line comment
• Begins with a # symbol and extends to the end of the current line
• Multiline comment
• A string enclosed in triple single quotes or triple double quotes
• Called docstrings to indicate that they can document major constructs
within a program

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Lexical Elements

• Lexical elements
• Types of words or symbols used to construct sentences
• Lexical items also include
• Identifiers (names)
• Literals (numbers, strings, and other built-in data structures)
• Operators
• Delimiters (quotation marks, commas, parentheses, square brackets,
and braces)

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Spelling and Naming Conventions (1 of 2)

• Python keywords and names ARE case-sensitive:

• Keywords are spelled in lowercase letters and color-coded in orange
• All names (other than those of built-in functions) are color-coded in black
• A name can begin with a letter or an underscore (_)
• Followed by an number of letters, underscores, or digits
• In this book
• Names of modules, variables, functions, and methods are spelled in
lowercase letters
• Names of classes follow the same conventions but begin with a capital
letter
• When a variable names a constant, all letters are uppercase and an
underscore separates embedded words
Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Spelling and Naming Conventions (2 of 2)

• Table 1.1 Examples of Python Naming Conventions

Type of Name Examples

Variable salary, hoursWorked, isAbsent

Constant ABSOLUTE_ZERO, INTEREST_RATE

Function or method printResults, cubeRoot, input

Class BankAccount, SortedSet

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Syntactic Elements

• Syntactic elements
• Types of sentences (expressions, statements, definitions, and other
constructs) composed from lexical elements
• Python uses white space to mark the syntax of many types of
sentences:
• Indentation and line breaks
• This book uses an indentation width of four spaces in all Python
code

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Literals

• Numbers are written as they are in other programming

languages
• Boolean values True and False are keywords
• Some data structures also have literals
• Such as string, tuples, lists, and dictionaries

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
String Literals (1 of 2)

• Enclose strings in
• Single quotes
• Double quotes
• Sets of three double quotes or three single quotes
• Character values are single-character strings
• The \ character is used to escape nongraphic characters such as
• Newline (\n) and tab (\t) or the \ character itself

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
String Literals (2 of 2)

• Example:
• print("Using double quotes")
• print('Using single quotes')
• print("Mentioning the word ‘Python’ by quoting it")
• print("Embedding a\nline break with n")
• print("""Embedding a
• line break with triple quotes""")
• Output:
Using double quotes
Using single quotes
Mentioning the word 'Python' by quoting it
Embedding a
line break with \n
Embedding a
line break with triple quotes

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Operators and Expressions (1 of 2)

• Arithmetic expressions use

• +, -, *, and %
• The / operator produces a floating-point result with any numeric
operands
• The // operator produces an integer quotient
• The + operator means concatenation when used with collections
• The ** operator is used for exponentiation

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Operators and Expressions (2 of 2)

• Comparison operators work with numbers and strings

• <, <=, >, >=, ==, and !=
• The == operator compares the internal contents of data
structures for structural equivalence
• The is operator compares two values for object identity
• Comparisons return True or False
• Logical operators treat several values, such as 0, None, the
empty string, and the empty list, as False:
• Most other Python values count as True

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Function Calls

• Functions are called with

• Function’s name followed by a list of arguments
• Example:
• min (5,2) #Returns 2

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
The print Function

• print
• Standard output function that displays arguments on the console
• Python automatically runs the str function on each argument to
obtain its string representation:
• Separates each string with a space before output
• By default
• print terminates its output with a newline

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
The input Function

• input
• Waits for the user to enter text
• When user presses the Enter key,
• The function returns a string containing characters entered

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Type Conversion Functions and Mixed-Mode
Operations

• You can use some data type names as type conversion

functions
• Example:
• When the user enters a number at a keyboard, the input function
returns a string of digits, not a numeric value
• Program must convert the string to an int or float before numeric
processing

• This code inputs the radius of a circle, converts this string to a

float, and computes and outputs the circle’s area:
radius = float(input("Radius: "))

print("The area is", 3.14 * radius ** 2)

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Optional and Keyword Function Arguments

• Functions may allow optional arguments

• Can be named with keywords when the function is called
• Example:
• To prevent the print function to output a newline after its arguments are
displayed, give the optional argument end a value of an empty string
print("The cursor will stay on this line, at the end", end =
"")
• Required arguments have no default values
• Optional arguments have default values
• Number of arguments passed to a function must be at least the
same number as its required arguments

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Variables and Assignment Statements

• Python variables are introduced with an assignment statement:

• PI = 3.1416
• Syntax:
• <identifier> = <expression>
• Several variables can be introduced in the same statement:
• minValue, maxValue = 1, 100
• Assignment statements must appear on a single line of code
• Unless the line is broken after a comma, parenthesis, curly brace, or
square bracket
• Can also end it with the escape symbol \

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Python Data Typing

• Any variable can name a value of any type

• Variables are not declared to have a type:
• They are simply assigned a value
• Data type names almost never appear in Python programs:
• However, all values or objects have types

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
import Statements

• Import statement makes visible to a program the identifiers from

another module
• Several ways to express an import statement:
• Simplest is to import the module name:
import math
• Another option brings in a name itself:
from math import sqrt
print (sqrt (2))
• You can import several individual names by listing them:
from math import pi, sqrt
print (sqrt (2) * pi)

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Getting Help on Program Components

• To access help,
• Enter the function call help (<component>) at the shell prompt
• For example,
• help (abs) and help (math.sqrt) display documentation for the
abs and math.sqrt functions
• Calls of dir(int) and dir(math) list all the operations in the
int type and math module:
• You can then run help to get help on one of these operations

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Control Statements

• A sequence of statements is a set of statements written one

after the other
• Each statement in a sequence must begin in the same column

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use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Conditional Statements (1 of 2)

• Keywords if, elif, and else are significant

• As is the colon character and indentation
• Syntax of the one-way if statement:
if <Boolean expression>:
<sequence of statements>
• Syntax of the two-way if statement:
if <Boolean expression>:
<sequence of statements>
else:
<sequence of statements>

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Conditional Statements (2 of 2)

• Syntax of the multiway if statement:

if <Boolean expression>:
<sequence of statements>
elif <Boolean expression>:
<sequence of statements>
else:
<sequence of statements>
• Example:
if x > y:
print (“x is greater than y”)
elif x < y:
print (“x is less than y”)
else:
print (“x is equal to y”)
Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Using if _name_ == “_main_”

• The numberguess program includes the definition of a main

function and the following if statement:
if _name_ == “_main_”:
main ()
• Purpose of this if statement is to allow the programmer either
to run the module as a standalone program or to import it from
the shell or other module

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Loop Statements

• Syntax of a while loop statement:

while <Boolean expression>:
<sequence of statements>
• Syntax of a for loop statement:
for <variable> in <iterable object>:
<sequence of statements>
• Python programmers prefer a for loop to iterate over definite
ranges or sequences of values:
• They use a while loop when the continuation condition is an arbitrary
Boolean expression

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Strings and Their Operations

• A Python string is a compound object that includes other objects

• Namely, its characters
• Each character in a Python string is a single-character string
• Python’s string type, named str
• Includes a large set of operations

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Operators

• Comparison operators:
• When strings are compared, the pairs of characters at each position in
two strings are compared
• The + operator builds and returns a new string that contains the
characters of the two operands
• The subscript operator expects an integer in the range from 0 to
the length of the string minus 1:
"greater"[0] # Returns 'g'
• Slice operator is a variation of the subscript:
"greater"[:] # Returns "greater"
"greater"[2:] # Returns "eater"
"greater"[:2] # Returns "gr"
"greater"[2:5] # Returns "eat"

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Formatting Strings for Output (1 of 2)

• Python includes a general formatting mechanism that allows the

programmer to specify field widths for different types of data
• Example of how to right justify and left justify the string “four”
within a field width of 6:
>>>"%6s" % "four" # Right justify
' four'
>>>"%-6s" % "four" # Left justify
'four '

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Formatting Strings for Output (2 of 2)

• The format information for a data value of type float has the form:
%<field width>.<precision>f
• This example shows the output of a floating-point number
without, and then with, a format string:
>>>salary = 100.00
>>>print("Your salary is $" + str(salary))
Your salary is $100.0
>>>print("Your salary is $%0.2f" % salary)
Your salary is $100.00

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Object and Method Calls

• Syntax of method call:

• <object>.<method name>(<list of arguments>)
• Examples of method calls on strings:
"greater".isupper() # Returns False
"greater".upper() # Returns "GREATER“
"greater".startswith("great") # Returns True
• If you try to run a method that an object does not recognize,
• Python raises an exception and halts the program
• To discover the set of methods that an object recognizes,
• Run Python’s dir function, in the Python shell, with the object’s type as an
argument

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Built-In Python Collections and Their Operations

• Modern programming languages include several types of

collections, such as lists
• That allow the programmer to organize and manipulate several data
values at once
• This section explores the built-in collections in Python

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Lists (1 of 2)

• List
• A sequence of zero or more Python objects
• Commonly called items
• Has a literal representation
• Uses square brackets to enclose items separated by commas
• Examples:
[] # An empty list
["greater"] # A list of one string
["greater", "less"] # A list of two strings
["greater", "less", 10] # A list of two strings and an int
["greater", ["less", 10]] # A list with a nested list

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Lists (2 of 2)

• Most commonly used list mutator methods:

• append, insert, pop, remove, and sort
• Examples:
testList = [] # testList is []
testList.append(34) # testList is [34]
testList.append(22) # testList is [34, 22]
testList.sort() # testList is [22, 34]
testList.pop() # Returns 22; testList is [34]
testList.insert(0, 22) # testList is [22, 34]
testList.insert(1, 55) # testList is [22, 55, 34]
testList.pop(1) # Returns 55; testList is [22, 34]
testList.remove(22) # testList is [34]
testList.remove(55) # raises ValueError

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Tuples

• Tuple
• An immutable sequence of items
• Tuple literals enclose items in parentheses
• Essentially like a list without mutator methods
• A tuple with one item must still include a comma:
>>> (34)
34

>>> (34,)
(34)

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Loops over Sequences

• For loop is used to iterate over items in a sequence:

testList = [67, 100, 22]
for item in testList:
print(item)
• This is equivalent to but simpler than an index-based loop over
the list:
testList = [67, 100, 22]
for index in range(len(testList)):
print(testList[index])

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Dictionaries

• Dictionary
• Contains zero or more entries
• Each entry associates a unique key with a value
• Keys are typically string or integers
• Values are any Python objects
• Examples:
{} # An empty dictionary
{"name":"Ken"} # One entry
{"name":"Ken", "age":67} # Two entries
{"hobbies":["reading", "running"]} # One entry, value
is a list
>>> for key in {"name":"Ken", "age":67}:
print(key)
name
age

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Searching for a Value

• The programmer can search strings, lists, tuples, or dictionaries

for a given value by running the in operator
• With the value and the collection
• This operator returns True or False
• For dictionaries
• The methods get and pop can take two arguments: a key and a
default value
• A failed search returns the default value

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Pattern Matching with Collections

• The subscript can be used to access items within lists, tuples,

and dictionaries
• It is often more convenient to access several items at once by means of
pattern matching
• Example using the subscript operator on colorTuple:
rgbTuple = colorTuple[0]
hexString = colorTuple[1]
r = rgbTuple[0]
g = rgbTuple[1]
b = rgbTuple[2]

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Creating New Functions

• Python includes built-in functions and allows the programmer to

create new functions:
• New functions can utilize recursion
• Can receive and return functions as data

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Function Definitions

• Syntax of a Python function definition:

def <function name>(<list of parameters>):
<sequence of statements>
• Rules and conventions for spelling function names and
parameter names are the same as for variable names
• Example of a definition of a simple function to compute and
return the square of a number:
def square(n):
"""Returns the square of n."""
result = n ** 2
return result

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Recursive Functions (1 of 2)

• Recursive function
• A function that calls itself
• To prevent a function from repeating itself indefinitely,
• It must contain at least one section statement that examines a condition
called a base case to determine whether to stop or to continue with a
recursive step
• Example of a definition of a function displayRange that prints
the numbers from a lower bound to an upper bound:
def displayRange(lower, upper):
"""Outputs the numbers from lower to upper."""
while lower <= upper:
print(lower)
lower = lower + 1

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Recursive Functions (2 of 2)

• How would you go about converting the previous function to a

recursive one? Note two important facts:
• The loop’s body continues execution while lower <= upper
• When the function executes, lower is incremented by 1 but upper
never changes
• The loop is replaced with an if statement, and the assignment
statement is replaced with a recursive call of the function:
def displayRange(lower, upper):
"""Outputs the numbers from lower to upper."""
if lower <= upper:
print(lower)
displayRange(lower + 1, upper)

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Nested Function Definitions

• Definitions of other functions may be nested within a function’s

sequence of statements:
# First definition
def factorial(n):
"""Returns the factorial of n."""
def recurse(n, product):
"""Helper function to compute factorial."""
if n == 1: return product
else: return recurse(n - 1, n * product)
return recurse(n, 1)
# Second definition
def factorial(n, product = 1):
"""Returns the factorial of n."""
if n == 1: return product
else: return factorial(n − 1, n * product)
Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Higher-Order Functions (1 of 2)

• Higher-order function
• A function that receives another function as an argument and applies it in
some way
• Python includes two built-in higher-order functions useful for
processing iterable objects:
• map and filter

map(str, oldList)
• Creates the iterable object containing the strings, and the code
newList = list(map(str, oldList))
• Creates a new list from that object

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Higher-Order Functions (2 of 2)

• The filter function returns an iterable object in which each

item is passed to the Boolean function:
• Essentially keeps the items that pass a test in an iterable object
filter(isPositive, oldList)
• Creates the iterable object containing the non-zero grades, and the code

newList = list(filter(isPositive, oldList))

• Creates a new list from that object

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Creating Anonymous Functions with lambda

• Syntax of lambda:
lambda <argument list> : <expression>
• The code:

newList = list(filter(lambda number: number > 0, oldList))

• Uses an anonymous Boolean function to drop the zero grades

from the list of grades

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Catching Exceptions

• Python includes a try-except statement that

• Allows a program to trap or catch exceptions and perform the
appropriate recovery operations
• Syntax of simplest form of this statement:
try:
<statements>
except <exception type>:
<statements>
• In general, you should try to include the exception type that
matches the type of exception expected under the
circumstances:
• If no such type exists, the general Exception type will match any
exception

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Files and Their Operations

• Python provides great support for managing and processing

several types of files
• This section examines some manipulations of text files and
object files

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Text File Output (1 of 2)

• When data are treated as integers or floating-point numbers,

• They must be separated by whitespace characters (spaces, tabs, and
newlines)
• A text file containing six floating-point numbers might look like:
34.6 22.33 66.75
77.12 21.44 99.01
• All data output to or input from a text file must be strings:
• Numbers must be converted to strings before output
• These strings must be converted back to numbers after input
• You can output data to a text file using a file object:
• Python’s open function, which expects a file pathname and a mode string
as arguments, opens a connection to the file on disk and returns a file
object
Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Text File Output (2 of 2)

• String data are written to a file using the method write with the
file object:
• The write method expects a single string argument
• If you want the output text to end with a newline,
• You must include the escape character \n in the string
• The next statement writes two lines of text to the file:
• >>> f.write("First line.\nSecond line.\n")
• When all the outputs are finished, the file should be closed using
the method close, as follows:
• >>> f.close()

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Writing Numbers to a Text File

• Integers or floating-point numbers must first be converted to

strings before being written to an output file
• Values of most data types can be converted to strings by using
the str function
• Resulting strings are written to a file with a space or a newline
as a separator character

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Reading Text from a Text File (1 of 2)

• Similar to opening a file for output, the

• Only thing that changes is the mode string, which, in the case of opening
a file for input, is ‘r’
• Code for opening myfile.txt for input:
• >>> f = open("myfile.txt", 'r')
• If the file contains multiple lines of text, the newline character
will be embedded in this string

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Reading Text from a Text File (2 of 2)

• Using the method read:

>>> text = f.read()
>>> text
'First line.\nSecond line.\n'
>>> print(text)
First line.
Second line.

• After input is finished

• Another call to read returns an empty string
• Indicates that the end of the file has been reached

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Reading Numbers from a File

• String representations of integers and floating-point numbers

can be converted to the numbers themselves
• By using the functions int and float, respectively
• Code that opens the file of random integers written earlier, reads
them, and prints their sum:
f = open("integers.txt", 'r')
theSum = 0
for line in f:
line = line.strip()
number = int(line)
theSum += number
print("The sum is", theSum)

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Reading and Writing Objects with pickle

• Python includes a module that allows the programmer to save

and load objects using a process called pickling
• You start by importing the pickle module:
• Files are opened for input and output using the "rb" and "wb" flags (for
byte streams) and closed in the usual manner
• To save an object, you use the function pickle.dump
• Code:
import pickle
lyst = [60, "A string object", 1977]
fileObj = open("items.dat", "wb")
for item in lyst:
pickle.dump(item, fileObj)
fileObj.close()

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.
Creating New Classes

• Class
• Describes the data and the methods pertaining to a set of objects
• Provides a blueprint for creating objects and the code to execute when
methods are called on them
• Syntax of a Python class definition:
def <class name>(<parent class name>):

<class variable assignments>

<instance method definitions>

• See text for examples of code for a class

Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, Second Edition. © 2019 Cengage. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part, except for
use as permitted in a license distributed with a certain product or service or otherwise on a password-protected website for classroom use.