Variables, Expressions and Operators.

Week 1 | Lecture 1 (1.1)

While waiting for class to start: Upcoming:

Download and open the Jupyter Notebook (.ipynb) for • Weekly Exit Quiz is available when you are ready
Lecture 1.1 (take your time, you have unlimited tries)
• Reflection 1 released after Thursday’s Tutorial
You may also use this lecture’s JupyterHub link instead
– in Tutorial, ask a mentor to help with your Jupyter • All Tutorials running this week
installation J
This Week’s Content
§ Lecture 1.1
§ Introduction
§ Variables, Expressions, and Operators
§ Lecture 1.2
§ Functions, Input/Output
 Reminder for Success: Practice!
§ Programming is a language
§ Everything is cumulative
§ Practice Problems released weekly
§ Use practice problem sets as litmus tests
§ Do them all, take note of which questions give you trouble
What is Programming?
§ A way of telling a computer what to do.
§ A computer can’t infer (…yet).
§ Need to tell a computer every single step it needs to do in a language
it can understand.
§ How would you request an egg for breakfast to a chef and to a
computer/robot?

§ To a Chef § To a Computer
1. “Turn on stove”
1. Sunny-side up, please!
2. “Take out pan”
3. “Take one egg out of fridge”
4. “Crack egg”
5. “Pour egg into pan”
6. “Wait 5 minutes”
How to
Programmer
English

Program a Pseudocode

Computer.
Programing Language
Compiler
Assembly Code
Assembler
Machine Code

are
ardw
H
The power of programming languages
§ if x > 10:
print(”x is greater than 10”)
Introducing Python
§ No end-of-instruction separators, such as semicolons (like in C
or Java)
§ Programs are stored in .py files
§ Comments start with a # character
§ Whitespace matters (exactly 4 spaces means indentation)
§ Python is an interpreted language (not a compiled one)
§ You can run code one statement at a time, just like a calculator or
Matlab
§ This means variables can change type during runtime, and do not have
to be declared before running
Arithmetic Operators
Operator Operation Expression English description Result
+ addition 11 + 56 11 plus 56 67

- subtraction 23 - 52 23 minus 52 -29

* multiplication 4 * 5 4 multiplied by 5 20

** exponentiation 2 ** 5 2 to the power of 5 32

/ division 9 / 2 9 divided by 2 4.5

// integer division 9 // 2 9 divided by 2 4

% modulo 9 % 2 9 mod 2 1
(remainder)
Arithmetic Operator Precedence
§ When multiple operators are combined in a single expression,
the operations are evaluated in order of precedence (from left to
right)
Operator Precedence

** highest

- (negation)

*, /, //, %

+ (addition), - (subtraction) lowest

Using Python as a Calculator
§ Let’s start with a simple use of Python
to get the feel for our new environment
§ Don’t forget your BEDMAS (or Open your
PEMDAS)!
§ Module 1 -> Lecture 1.1 ->
notebook
“Notebook”
§ This will open up Jupyter Notebook Click Link:
with today’s lecture code 1. Using Python as a
§ Jupyter Hub: jupyter.utoronto.ca Calculator
§ Requires no installation, not even Python!
Variables and Memory
§ The most basic thing you can do in a computer program is to
assign a value to a variable.
§ Assignment statements
variable = expression
§ x = 20
(or)
§ y = 20+5*2

§ Rules for assignment

§ 1. Evaluate the expression to the right of = sign (produces memory
address of the value)
§ 2. Store the memory address in the variable on the left of the = sign
 Variable Names and Conventions
§ The rules for legal Python names:
§ Names must start with a letter or _ (underscore)
§ Names must contain only letters, digits, and _

§ In most situations, the convention is to use

pothole_case
§ Lowercase letters with words separated by _ to
improve readability

§ Try to add meaning where possible!

§ Ex: gas_mileage and cost_per_litre instead of
nomnom and nomnomnom
§ Save yourself when debugging & put your TAs in a
good mood when marking
Memory Visualization Example
>>> difference = 20
>>> double = 2 * difference
>>> double
40
>>> difference = 5
>>> double
40
Memory Visualization Example
>>> difference = 20
>>> double = 2 * difference
>>> double 1. Evaluate the expression on the right of the = sign -> 20.
This produces the value 20, which we’ll put at memory
40 address id1.
2. Make the variable on the left of the = sign, difference,
>>> difference = 5 refer to 20 by storing id1 in difference.
>>> double
40
Memory Visualization Example
>>> difference = 20
>>> double = 2 * difference
>>> double 1. Evaluate the expression on the right of the = sign: 2 *
difference. As we see in the memory model, difference refers to
40 the value 20, so this expression is equivalent to 2 *20, which
produces 40. We’ll pick the memory address id2 for the value 40.
>>> difference = 5 2. Make the variable on the left of the = sign, double, refer to 40
by storing id2 in double.
>>> double
40
Memory Visualization Example
>>> difference = 20
>>> double = 2 * difference
>>> double When Python executes the third statement, double, it merely looks up
the value that doublerefers to (40) and displays it.
40
>>> difference = 5
>>> double
40
Memory Visualization Example
>>> difference = 20
>>> double = 2 * difference
1. Evaluate the expression on the right of the = sign: 5. This
>>> double produces the value 5, which we’ll put at the memory address id3.

40 2. Make the variable on the left of the = sign, difference, refer to 5

by storing id3 in difference.
>>> difference = 5
>>> double
40
Memory Visualization Example
>>> difference = 20
>>> double = 2 * difference
>>> double Variable double still contains id2, so it still refers to 40. Neither
variable refers to 20 anymore which is OK as Python will take care of
40 recycling of memory when it is no longer used.

>>> difference = 5
>>> double
40
Python Tutor Visualization
§ http://pythontutor.com/visualize.html
§ Code might seem simple now…
Variables and Memory
§ Let’s go experiment with some of
what we just saw
§ Assignment statements Open your
§ Declaring variables
§ Different variable names notebook
§ Memory locations
§ (and the famous print statement!)
Click Link:
2. Variables and
Memory
Variable Types
• A type is a set of values and the
operations that can be performed on
those values.

• int: integer
§ ex. 3, 4, 894, 0, -3, -18
• float: floating point number
§ ex. -5.6, 7.342, 53452.0, -89.34
Numerical Type Examples
>>> 5 + 2 * 4
13
>>> 5.0 + 2 * 4
13.0
>>> 30/6
5.0
>>> 30//6
5
Type: str (pronounced string)
• str: string literal is a sequence of characters
• Start and end with single quotes (') or double
quotes (")
§ ex. 'hello', "What is 10 * (2 + 9)?”
§ Just like writing in English, the quote type
must match (i.e. 2 singles or 2 doubles, not 1
of each)
String Type Examples
>>> ‘how are you?’

>>> “short- and long-term”

>>> ‘“APS106” is already my favourite course’

>>> “APS106 stinks’

SyntaxError
More data types?!
• You can get the data type of any object by using
the type() function
>>> x = 5
>>> print(type(x))
<class ‘int’>

• Other Python data types:

• List
• Tuple
• Dictionary
• Set
• Boolean
BUT we will worry about these later…
Variables Types
§ Let’s go experiment with some of
what we just saw
§ “int”s vs “float”s Open your
§ The ”str” type
§ Using types and variables in notebook
expressions
§ Combining our type knowledge with
some arithmetic operations Click Link:
3. Different Types
of Variables
 Augmented Assignment Operations
Operator Expression Identical Expression English description
+= x=7 x=7 x refers to 9
x += 2 x=x+2

-= x=7
x -= 2
x=7
x=x-2
x refers to 5
Open your
*= x=7
x *= 2
x=7
x=x*2
x refers to 14
notebook
/= x=7 x=7 x refers to 3.5
x /= 2 x=x/2

//= x=7 x=7 x refers to 3 Click Link:

x //= 2 x = x // 2
4. Augmented
%= x=7 x=7 x refers to 1
x %= 2 x=x%2 Assignment
**= x=7 x=7 x refers to 49 Operators
x **= 2 x = x ** 2
Let’s Code!
Convert gas mileage from American (Imperial) to Canadian (Metric)
§ In the old days (and still in the United
States), the mileage of a gas-powered
car was measured in miles per gallon.
§ Now for places that use the metric
Open your
system, we prefer to measure
“mileage” as “fuel consumption” in
notebook
litres per hundred kilometres.
§ Write code to do the conversion to Click Link:
metric given a value in miles per 5. Let’s Code!
gallon.
Variables, Expressions and Operators.
Week 1 | Lecture 1 (1.1)