GETTING STARTED WITH

PYTHON
1.1 Introduction:
⮚ General-purpose Object Oriented Programming language.
⮚ High-level language
⮚ Developed in late 1980 by Guido van Rossum at National Research Institute for
Mathematics and Computer Science in the Netherlands.
⮚ It is derived from programming languages such as ABC, Modula 3, small talk, Algol-
68.
⮚ It is Open Source Scripting language.
⮚ It is Case-sensitive language (Difference between uppercase and lowercase letters).
⮚ One of the official languages at Google.

1.2 Characteristics of Python:

✔ Interpreted: Python source code is compiled to byte code as a .pyc file, and this byte
code can be interpreted by the interpreter.
✔ Interactive
✔ Object Oriented Programming Language
✔ Easy & Simple
✔ Portable
✔ Scalable: Provides improved structure for supporting large programs.
✔ Integrated
✔ Expressive Language
1.3 Python Interpreter:
Names of some Python interpreters are:
▪ PyCharm
▪ Python IDLE
▪ The Python Bundle
▪ pyGUI
▪ Sublime Text etc.
There are two modes to use the python interpreter:
i. Interactive Mode
ii. Script Mode
i. Interactive Mode: Without passing python script file to the interpreter, directly
execute code to Python (Command line).

Example:
>>>6+3

Output: 9

Fig: Interactive Mode

Note: >>> is a command the python interpreter uses to indicate that it is ready. The
interactive mode is better when a programmer deals with small pieces of code.
To run a python file on command line:
exec(open(“C:\Python33\python programs\program1.py”).read( ))

ii. Script Mode: In this mode source code is stored in a file with the .py extension
and use the interpreter to execute the contents of the file. To execute the script by the
interpreter, you have to tell the interpreter the name of the file.

Example:
if you have a file name Demo.py , to run the script you have to follow the following
steps:
Step-1: Open the text editor i.e. Notepad
Step-2: Write the python code and save the file with .py file extension. (Default
directory is C:\Python33/Demo.py)
Step-3: Open IDLE ( Python GUI) python shell
Step-4: Click on file menu and select the open option
Step-5: Select the existing python file
Step-6: Now a window of python file will be opened
Step-7: Click on Run menu and the option Run Module.
Step-8: Output will be displayed on python shell window.

Fig. : IDLE (Python GUI)

Fig: Python Shell

 PYTHON FUNDAMENTALS

2.1 Python Character Set :

It is a set of valid characters that a language recognize.
Letters: A-Z, a-z
Digits : 0-9
Special Symbols
Whitespace

2.2 TOKENS
Token: Smallest individual unit in a program is known as token.
There are five types of token in python:
1. Keyword
2. Identifier
3. Literal
4. Operators
5. Punctuators

1. Keyword: Reserved words in the library of a language. There are 33 keywords

in python.

False class finally is return break

None continue for lambda try except

True def from nonlocal while in

All the keywords are in lowercase except 03 keywords (True, False, None).
2. Identifier: The name given by the user to the entities like variable name, class-name,
function-name etc.

Rules for identifiers:

▪ It can be a combination of letters in lowercase (a to z) or uppercase (A to Z)

or digits (0 to 9) or an underscore.
▪ It cannot start with a digit.

▪ Keywords cannot be used as an identifier.

▪ We cannot use special symbols like !, @, #, $, %, + etc. in identifier.
▪ _ (underscore) can be used in identifier.
▪ Commas or blank spaces are not allowed within an identifier.

3. Literal: Literals are the constant value. Literals can be defined as a data that is given
in a variable or constant.

Lit

Num St Bool Spe Liter

al

i f com

T F N

A. Numeric literals: Numeric Literals are immutable.

Eg 5,6.7,6+9j
B. String literals:

String literals can be formed by enclosing a text in the quotes. We can use both single as
well as double quotes for a String.

Eg:

"Aman" , '12345'

Escape sequence characters:

\ Backslash
\
\ Single quote
’
\ Double quote
”
\ ASCII Bell
a
\ Backspace
b
\ ASCII Formfeed
f
\ New line charater
n
\ Horizontal tab
t

C. Boolean literal: A Boolean literal can have any of the two values: True or False.

D. Special literals: Python contains one special literal i.e. None.

None is used to specify to that field that is not created. It is also used for end of lists in
Python.

E. Literal Collections: Collections such as tuples, lists and Dictionary are used in Python.

4. Operators: An operator performs the operation on operands. Basically there are two
types of operators in python according to number of operands:
A. Unary Operator
B. Binary Operator

A. Unary Operator: Performs the operation on one operand.

 Example:
+ Unary plus
- Unary minus
~ Bitwise complement
not Logical negation

B. Binary Operator: Performs operation on two operands.

5. Separator or punctuator : , ; , ( ), { }, [ ]

2.3 Mantissa and Exponent Form:

A real number in exponent form has two parts:

⮚ mantissa
⮚ exponent
Mantissa : It must be either an integer or a proper real constant.
Exponent : It must be an integer. Represented by a letter E or e followed by integer value.

Valid Exponent form Invalid Exponent form

123E05 2.3E (No digit specified for exponent)
1.23E07 0.24E3.2 (Exponent cannot have fractional
0.123E08
123.0E08 part) 23,455E03 (No comma allowed)
2.4 Basic terms of a Python Programs:
A. Blocks and Indentation
B. Statements
C. Expressions
D. Comments

A. Blocks and Indentation:

● Python provides no braces to indicate blocks of code for class and function definition or
flow control.
● Maximum line length should be maximum 79 characters.
● 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”)

B.Statements
A line which has the instructions or expressions.

C. Expressions:
A legal combination of symbols and values that produce a result. Generally it produces a value.

D. Comments: Comments are not executed. Comments explain a program and make a
program understandable and readable. All characters after the # and up to the end of the
physical line are part of the comment and the Python interpreter ignores them.
There are two types of comments in python:
i. Single line comment
ii. Multi-line comment

i. Single line comment: This type of comments start in a line and when a line ends, it is
automatically ends. Single line comment starts with # symbol.
Example: if a>b: # Relational operator compare two values

ii. Multi-Line comment: Multiline comments can be written in more than one lines. Triple
quoted ‘ ’ ’ or “ ” ”) multi-line comments may be used in python. It is also known as
docstring.
Example:
‘’’ This program will calculate the average of 10 values.
First find the sum of 10 values
and divide the sum by number of values
‘’’
 Multiple Statements on a Single Line:
The semicolon ( ; ) allows multiple statements on the single line given that neither statement
starts a new code block.
Example:-
x=5; print(“Value =” x)

2.5 Variable/Label in Python:

Definition: Named location that refers to a value and whose value can be used and processed
during program execution.
Variables in python do not have fixed locations. The location they refer to changes every time
their values change.

Creating a variable:

A variable is created the moment you first assign a value to it.

Example:

x=5

y = “hello”
Variables do not need to be declared with any particular type and can even change type after
they have been set. It is known as dynamic Typing.

x = 4 # x is of type int
x = "python" # x is now of type str
print(x)
Rules for Python variables:

● A variable name must start with a letter or the underscore character

● A variable name cannot start with a number
● A variable name can only contain alpha-numeric characters and underscore (A-z, 0-9,
and _ )
● Variable names are case-sensitive (age, Age and AGE are three different variables)
Python allows assign a single value to multiple

variables. Example: x = y = z = 5

You can also assign multiple values to multiple variables. For example −

x , y , z = 4, 5, “python”
4 is assigned to x, 5 is assigned to y and string “python” assigned to variable z respectively.
x=12
y=14
x,y=y,x
print(x,y)
Now the result will be
14 12

Lvalue and Rvalue:

An expression has two values. Lvalue and Rvalue.
Lvalue: the LHS part of the expression
Rvalue: the RHS part of the expression
Python first evaluates the RHS expression and then assigns to LHS.
Example:
p, q, r= 5, 10, 7

q, r, p = p+1, q+2, r-1

print (p,q,r)
Now the result will be:
6 6 12

❖ If you want to know the type of variable, you can use type( ) function :
Syntax:
type (variable-name)
Example:
x=6
type(x)
The result will be:

<class ‘int’>
❖ If you want to know the memory address or location of the object, you can use id( )
function.
Example:
>>>id(5)
1561184448
>>>b=5
>>>id(b)
1561184448
You can delete single or multiple variables by using del statement. Example:
del x
del y, z

2.6 Input from a user:

input( ) method is used to take input from the user.
Example:
print("Enter your name:")
x = input( )
print("Hello, " + x)

⮚ input( ) function always returns a value of string type.

2.7 Type Casting:

To convert one data type into another data type.

Casting in python is therefore done using constructor functions:

 ● int( ) - constructs an integer number from an integer literal, a float literal or a string
literal.

Example:

x = int(1) # x will be 1
y = int(2.8) # y will be 2
z = int("3") # z will be 3

● float( ) - constructs a float number from an integer literal, a float literal or a string literal.

Example:

x = float(1) # x will be 1.0

y = float(2.8) # y will be 2.8
z = float("3") # z will be 3.0
w = float("4.2") # w will be 4.2

● str( ) - constructs a string from a wide variety of data types, including strings, integer
literals and float literals.

Example:
x = str("s1") # x will be 's1'
y = str(2) # y will be '2'
z = str(3.0) # z will be '3.0'
Reading a number from a user:
x= int (input(“Enter an integer number”))

2.8 OUTPUT using print( )

statement:
object : It can be one or multiple objects separated by comma.
sep : sep argument specifies the separator character or string. It separate the objects/items. By
default sep argument adds space in between the items when printing.
end : It determines the end character that will be printed at the end of print line. By default it
has newline character( ‘\n’ ).
Example:
x=10
y=20
z=30
print(x,y,z, sep=’@’, end= ‘ ‘)
Output:
10@20@30