ANI3512

Python

Web Ref: Python - Basic(tutorialspoint.com)

 I. Introduction

What is python, What python can do, Why python, Python and other
language, syntax, comments
Python is a high-level, interpreted, interactive and object-oriented scripting language. Python is designed to be highly readable. It uses
English keywords frequently where as other languages use punctuation, and it has fewer syntactical constructions than other
languages.

● Python is Interpreted − Python is processed at runtime by the interpreter. You do not need to compile your program before
executing it. This is similar to PERL and PHP.
● Python is Interactive − You can actually sit at a Python prompt and interact with the interpreter directly to write your programs.
● Python is Object-Oriented − Python supports Object-Oriented style or technique of programming that encapsulates code
within objects.
● Python is a Beginner's Language − Python is a great language for the beginner-level programmers and supports the
development of a wide range of applications from simple text processing to WWW browsers to games.
History of Python
Python was developed by Guido van Rossum in the late eighties and early nineties at the National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer
Science in the Netherlands.

Python is derived from many other languages, including ABC, Modula-3, C, C++, Algol-68, SmallTalk, and Unix shell and other scripting languages.

Python is copyrighted. Like Perl, Python source code is now available under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Python is now maintained by a core development team at the institute, although Guido van Rossum still holds a vital role in directing its progress.
Python Features
Python's features include −

● Easy-to-learn − Python has few keywords, simple structure, and a clearly defined syntax. This allows the student to pick up the language
quickly.
● Easy-to-read − Python code is more clearly defined and visible to the eyes.
● Easy-to-maintain − Python's source code is fairly easy-to-maintain.
● A broad standard library − Python's bulk of the library is very portable and cross-platform compatible on UNIX, Windows, and Macintosh.
● Interactive Mode − Python has support for an interactive mode which allows interactive testing and debugging of snippets of code.
● Portable − Python can run on a wide variety of hardware platforms and has the same interface on all platforms.
● Extendable − You can add low-level modules to the Python interpreter. These modules enable programmers to add to or customize their
tools to be more efficient.
● Databases − Python provides interfaces to all major commercial databases.
● GUI Programming − Python supports GUI applications that can be created and ported to many system calls, libraries and windows systems,
such as Windows MFC, Macintosh, and the X Window system of Unix.
● Scalable − Python provides a better structure and support for large programs than shell scripting.
Apart from the above-mentioned features, Python has a big list of good features, few are listed below −

● It supports functional and structured programming methods as well as OOP.

● It can be used as a scripting language or can be compiled to byte-code for building large
applications.
● It provides very high-level dynamic data types and supports dynamic type checking.
● It supports automatic garbage collection.
● It can be easily integrated with C, C++, COM, ActiveX, CORBA, and Java.
First Python Program
Let us execute programs in different modes of programming.

Type the following text at the Python prompt and press the Enter −

>>> print "Hello, Python!"

If you are running new version of Python, then you would need to use print statement with parenthesis as in print ("Hello, Python!");.
Characteristics of Python
Following are important characteristics of Python Programming −

● It supports functional and structured programming methods as well as OOP.

● It can be used as a scripting language or can be compiled to byte-code for building large applications.
● It provides very high-level dynamic data types and supports dynamic type checking.
● It supports automatic garbage collection.
● It can be easily integrated with C, C++, COM, ActiveX, CORBA, and Java.
Applications of Python
The latest release of Python is 3.x. As mentioned before, Python is one of the most widely used language over the web. I'm going to
list few of them here:

● Easy-to-learn − Python has few keywords, simple structure, and a clearly defined syntax. This allows the student to pick up the language
quickly.
● Easy-to-read − Python code is more clearly defined and visible to the eyes.
● Easy-to-maintain − Python's source code is fairly easy-to-maintain.
● A broad standard library − Python's bulk of the library is very portable and cross-platform compatible on UNIX, Windows, and Macintosh.
● Interactive Mode − Python has support for an interactive mode which allows interactive testing and debugging of snippets of code.
● Portable − Python can run on a wide variety of hardware platforms and has the same interface on all platforms.
● Extendable − You can add low-level modules to the Python interpreter. These modules enable programmers to add to or customize their
tools to be more efficient.
● Databases − Python provides interfaces to all major commercial databases.
● GUI Programming − Python supports GUI applications that can be created and ported to many system calls, libraries and windows
systems, such as Windows MFC, Macintosh, and the X Window system of Unix.
● Scalable − Python provides a better structure and support for large programs than shell scripting.
Python Identifiers
A Python identifier is a name used to identify a variable, function, class, module or other object. An identifier starts with a
letter A to Z or a to z or an underscore (_) followed by zero or more letters, underscores and digits (0 to 9).

Python does not allow punctuation characters such as @, $, and % within identifiers. Python is a case sensitive
programming language. Thus, Manpower and manpower are two different identifiers in Python.

Here are naming conventions for Python identifiers −

● Class names start with an uppercase letter. All other identifiers start with a lowercase letter.
● Starting an identifier with a single leading underscore indicates that the identifier is private.
● Starting an identifier with two leading underscores indicates a strongly private identifier.
● If the identifier also ends with two trailing underscores, the identifier is a language-defined special name.
Reserved Words
The following list shows the Python keywords. These are reserved words and you cannot use them as constant or
variable or any other identifier names. All the Python keywords contain lowercase letters only.

and exec not

assert finally or

break for pass

class from print

continue global raise

def if return

del import try

elif in while

else is with
Lines and Indentation
Python provides no braces to indicate blocks of code for class and function definitions or flow control. Blocks of code are denoted by
line indentation, which is rigidly enforced. The number of spaces in the indentation is variable, but all statements within the block
must be indented the same amount. For example −

if True:
print "True"
else:
print "False"

However, the following block generates an error −

if True:
print "Answer"
print "True"
else:
print "Answer"
print "False"
Multi-Line Statements
Statements in Python typically end with a new line. Python does, however, allow the use of the line continuation
character (\) to denote that the line should continue. For example −
total = item_one + \
item_two + \
item_three

Statements contained within the [], {}, or () brackets do not need to use the line continuation character. For example −

days = ['Monday', 'Tuesday', 'Wednesday',

'Thursday', 'Friday']
Quotation in Python
Python accepts single ('), double (") and triple (''' or """) quotes to denote string literals, as long as the same type of quote
starts and ends the string.

The triple quotes are used to span the string across multiple lines. For example, all the following are legal −

word = 'word'
sentence = "This is a sentence."
paragraph = """This is a paragraph. It is
made up of multiple lines and sentences."""
Comments in Python
A hash sign (#) that is not inside a string literal begins a comment. All characters after the # and up to the end of the physical line are
part of the comment and the Python interpreter ignores them.

#!/usr/bin/python

# First comment
print "Hello, Python!" # second comment

You can type a comment on the same line after a statement or expression −

name = "Madisetti" # This is again comment

You can comment multiple lines as follows −

# This is an comment.
# This is an comment, too.
# This is an comment, too.
# I said already.

Following triple-quoted string is also ignored by Python interpreter and can be used as a multiline comments:

'''
This is a multiline
comment.
'''
Variables are nothing but reserved memory locations to store values. This means that when you create a variable you

reserve some space in memory.

Based on the data type of a variable, the interpreter allocates memory and decides what can be stored in the reserved
memory. Therefore, by assigning different data types to variables, you can store integers, decimals or characters in these
variables.
Assigning Values to Variables
Python variables do not need explicit declaration to reserve memory space. The declaration happens automatically when you assign
a value to a variable. The equal sign (=) is used to assign values to variables.

The operand to the left of the = operator is the name of the variable and the operand to the right of the = operator is the value stored
in the variable. For example −

#!/usr/bin/python

counter = 100 # An integer assignment

miles = 1000.0 # A floating point
name = "John" # A string
print counter
print miles
print name

Here, 100, 1000.0 and "John" are the values assigned to counter, miles, and name variables, respectively. This produces the
following result −

100
1000.0
John
Multiple Assignment
Python allows you to assign a single value to several variables simultaneously. For example −

a=b=c=1

Here, an integer object is created with the value 1, and all three variables are assigned to the same memory location. You can also
assign multiple objects to multiple variables. For example −

a,b,c = 1,2,"john"

Here, two integer objects with values 1 and 2 are assigned to variables a and b respectively, and one string object with the value
"john" is assigned to the variable c.
Standard Data Types
The data stored in memory can be of many types. For example, a person's age is stored as a numeric
value and his or her address is stored as alphanumeric characters. Python has various standard data
types that are used to define the operations possible on them and the storage method for each of them.

Python has five standard data types −

● Numbers
● String
● List
● Tuple
● Dictionary
var1 = 1
var2 = 10

You can also delete the reference to a number object by using the del statement. The syntax of the del statement is −

del var1[,var2[,var3[....,varN]]]]

You can delete a single object or multiple objects by using the del statement. For example −

del var
del var_a, var_b

Python supports four different numerical types −

● int (signed integers)

● long (long integers, they can also be represented in octal and
hexadecimal)
● float (floating point real values)
● complex (complex numbers)
Examples
Here are some examples of numbers −

int long float complex

10 51924361L 0.0 3.14j

100 -0x19323L 15.20 45.j

-786 0122L -21.9 9.322e-36j

080 0xDEFABCECBDAECBFBAEl 32.3+e18 .876j

-0490 535633629843L -90. -.6545+0J

-0x260 -052318172735L -32.54e100 3e+26J

0x69 -4721885298529L 70.2-E12 4.53e-7j

Python Strings
Strings in Python are identified as a contiguous set of characters represented in the quotation marks. Python allows for either pairs of
single or double quotes. Subsets of strings can be taken using the slice operator ([ ] and [:] ) with indexes starting at 0 in the
beginning of the string and working their way from -1 at the end.

The plus (+) sign is the string concatenation operator and the asterisk (*) is the repetition operator. For example −

#!/usr/bin/python

str = 'Hello World!'

print str # Prints complete string
print str[0] # Prints first character of the string
print str[2:5] # Prints characters starting from 3rd to 5th
print str[2:] # Prints string starting from 3rd character
print str * 2 # Prints string two times
print str + "TEST" # Prints concatenated string
Lists are the most versatile of Python's compound data types. A list contains items separated by commas and enclosed within square
brackets ([]). To some extent, lists are similar to arrays in C. One difference between them is that all the items belonging to a list can
be of different data type.

The values stored in a list can be accessed using the slice operator ([ ] and [:]) with indexes starting at 0 in the beginning of the list
and working their way to end -1. The plus (+) sign is the list concatenation operator, and the asterisk (*) is the repetition operator. For
example −

#!/usr/bin/python

list = [ 'abcd', 786 , 2.23, 'john', 70.2 ]

tinylist = [123, 'john']

print list # Prints complete list

print list[0] # Prints first element of the list
print list[1:3] # Prints elements starting from 2nd till 3rd
print list[2:] # Prints elements starting from 3rd element
print tinylist * 2 # Prints list two times
print list + tinylist # Prints concatenated lists

This produce the following result −

['abcd', 786, 2.23, 'john', 70.2]

abcd
[786, 2.23]
[2.23, 'john', 70.2]
[123, 'john', 123, 'john']
['abcd', 786, 2.23, 'john', 70.2, 123, 'john']
Python Tuples
A tuple is another sequence data type that is similar to the list. A tuple consists of a number of values separated by commas. Unlike
lists, however, tuples are enclosed within parentheses.

The main differences between lists and tuples are: Lists are enclosed in brackets ( [ ] ) and their elements and size can be changed,
while tuples are enclosed in parentheses ( ( ) ) and cannot be updated. Tuples can be thought of as read-only lists. For example −

#!/usr/bin/python

tuple = ( 'abcd', 786 , 2.23, 'john', 70.2 )

tinytuple = (123, 'john')
#!/usr/bin/python

tuple = ( 'abcd', 786 , 2.23, 'john', 70.2 )

tinytuple = (123, 'john')

print tuple # Prints the complete tuple

print tuple[0] # Prints first element of the tuple
print tuple[1:3] # Prints elements of the tuple starting from 2nd till 3rd
print tuple[2:] # Prints elements of the tuple starting from 3rd element
print tinytuple * 2 # Prints the contents of the tuple twice
print tuple + tinytuple # Prints concatenated tuples

This produce the following result −

('abcd', 786, 2.23, 'john', 70.2)

abcd
(786, 2.23)
(2.23, 'john', 70.2)
(123, 'john', 123, 'john')
('abcd', 786, 2.23, 'john', 70.2, 123, 'john')

The following code is invalid with tuple, because we attempted to update a tuple, which is not allowed. Similar case is possible with
lists −
#!/usr/bin/python

tuple = ( 'abcd', 786 , 2.23, 'john', 70.2 )

list = [ 'abcd', 786 , 2.23, 'john', 70.2 ]
tuple[2] = 1000 # Invalid syntax with tuple
list[2] = 1000 # Valid syntax with list
Python's dictionaries are kind of hash table type. They work like associative arrays or hashes found in Perl and consist of key-value
pairs. A dictionary key can be almost any Python type, but are usually numbers or strings. Values, on the other hand, can be any
arbitrary Python object. Dictionaries are enclosed by curly braces ({ }) and values can be assigned and accessed using square braces
([]). For example −
#!/usr/bin/python

dict = {}
dict['one'] = "This is one"
dict[2] = "This is two"

tinydict = {'name': 'john','code':6734, 'dept': 'sales'}

print dict['one'] # Prints value for 'one' key

print dict[2] # Prints value for 2 key
print tinydict # Prints complete dictionary
print tinydict.keys() # Prints all the keys
print tinydict.values() # Prints all the values

This produce the following result −

This is one
This is two
{'dept': 'sales', 'code': 6734, 'name': 'john'}
['dept', 'code', 'name']
['sales', 6734, 'john']
Consider the expression 4 + 5 = 9. Here, 4 and 5 are called operands and + is called operator.

Types of Operator
Python language supports the following types of operators.

● Arithmetic Operators
● Comparison (Relational) Operators
● Assignment Operators
● Logical Operators
● Bitwise Operators
● Membership Operators
● Identity Operators

Let us have a look on all operators one by one.

 Python Arithmetic Operators
Assume variable a holds 10 and variable b holds 20, then −

Operator Description Example

+ Addition Adds values on either side of the operator. a + b = 30

- Subtracts right hand operand from left hand operand. a – b = -10

Subtraction

* Multiplies values on either side of the operator a * b = 200

Multiplicatio
n

/ Division Divides left hand operand by right hand operand b/a=2

% Modulus Divides left hand operand by right hand operand and b%a=0
returns remainder

** Exponent Performs exponential (power) calculation on operators a**b =10 to the power 20

// Floor Division - The division of operands where the 9//2 = 4 and 9.0//2.0 = 4.0, -11//3 = -4, -11.0//3 = -4.0
Python Comparison Operators
These operators compare the values on either sides of them and decide the relation among them. They are also called Relational
operators.
Operator Assume variable a holdsDescription
10 and variable b holds 20, then − Example

== If the values of two operands are equal, then the (a == b) is not true.
condition becomes true.

!= If values of two operands are not equal, then condition (a != b) is true.

becomes true.

<> If values of two operands are not equal, then condition (a <> b) is true. This is similar to != operator.
becomes true.

> If the value of left operand is greater than the value of (a > b) is not true.
right operand, then condition becomes true.

< If the value of left operand is less than the value of right (a < b) is true.
operand, then condition becomes true.

>= If the value of left operand is greater than or equal to (a >= b) is not true.
Python Assignment Operators
Assume variable a holds 10 and variable b holds 20, then −
Operator Description Example

= Assigns values from right side operands to left side

c = a + b assigns value of a + b into c
operand

+= Add It adds right operand to the left operand and assign the
c += a is equivalent to c = c + a
AND result to left operand

-= It subtracts right operand from the left operand and

Subtract assign the result to left operand c -= a is equivalent to c = c - a
AND

*= It multiplies right operand with the left operand and

Multiply assign the result to left operand c *= a is equivalent to c = c * a
AND

/= Divide It divides left operand with the right operand and assign
c /= a is equivalent to c = c / a
Bitwise operator works on bits and performs bit by bit operation.
Assume if a = 60; and b = 13;
Now in the binary format their values will be 0011 1100 and 0000 1101 respectively.
Following table lists out the bitwise operators supported by Python language with an example each in those, we use the above
two variables (a and b) as operands −

Operator Description Example

& Binary Operator copies a bit to the result if it exists in both

(a & b) (means 0000 1100)
AND operands

| Binary OR It copies a bit if it exists in either operand. (a | b) = 61 (means 0011 1101)

^ Binary It copies the bit if it is set in one operand but not both.
(a ^ b) = 49 (means 0011 0001)
XOR

~ Binary
Ones (~a ) = -61 (means 1100 0011 in 2's complement
It is unary and has the effect of 'flipping' bits.
Complemen form due to a signed binary number.
t

<< Binary The left operands value is moved left by the number of
a << 2 = 240 (means 1111 0000)
Left Shift bits specified by the right operand.
Python Logical Operators
There are following logical operators supported by Python language. Assume variable a holds 10 and variable b holds 20 then

Operator Description Example

and If both the operands are true then condition becomes (a and b) is true.
Logical true.
AND

or Logical If any of the two operands are non-zero then condition (a or b) is true.
OR becomes true.

not Used to reverse the logical state of its operand. Not(a and b) is false.
Logical
NOT
Python Operators Precedence
The following table lists all operators from highest precedence to lowest.
Sr.No. Operator & Description

1 ** Exponentiation (raise to the power)

2 ~+- Complement, unary plus and minus (method names for the last two are +@ and -@)

3 * / % // Multiply, divide, modulo and floor division

4 +- Addition and subtraction

5 >> << Right and left bitwise shift

6 & Bitwise 'AND'

7 ^| Bitwise exclusive `OR' and regular `OR'