Introduction to python

Basics

Operators, Loops, Conditionals

Mauricio Sevilla
email= [email protected]

04.04.19
This is the rst of a series of python lectures, so it will be very simple and detailed, but the
idea is that we want to create the following attending to the particular needs of the group,
so suggestions and comments are welcome if there is any.
Programming languages families
As we cannot write binary, we use a different Language!, and translators to the machine
language.

One can divide the programming languages in two big families,

Compiled
Interpreted

and the two of them have huge differences!.

Generally compiled languages are way more di cult to write than interpreted laguages.

That is because the computer must translate the codes into binary operations so that they
can be performed.

But sometimes the efort worths it!.

Example
C++ python
#include<iostream> print("Hello world")
int main(void){
std::cout<<"Hello World"<<std::endl;
return 0;
}
There are two different strategies to perform this translation

Translate the complete le (code).

Translate the code line by line.

This task can is the difference between the compiled and interpreted languages.

Which is which?
Python as an interpreter
Python can be used as an interpreter, in the sense that makes a translation line by line of
our code, so we can run one intruction at a time in the same way we did with the shell , to
do so open python

Note : We are going to use python3 instead of just python

Today, the latest version of python is Python 3.7.2 , so we are
not going to use python (which means Python 2.7 ).

The main reason for that, is because Python 2.7.8 was released on July 1,
2014. is too old!!, meanwhile Release Python 3.7.2 was released on Dicember
24, 2018.
On windows, the best way to install python and all its prerequisites is installing
1
anaconda (https://www.anaconda.com/) .

To download anaconda, go to link (https://www.anaconda.com/distribution/).

1. It is available on Windows, Linux and Mac↩

 Invoke python 3 by typing

python3

on the terminal

In [1]: 2+3

Out[1]: 5

In [2]: 2.0+3.0

Out[2]: 5.0

In [3]: 2.+3.

Out[3]: 5.0
 It is also possible to save values in variables to operate them

In [4]: a=3

In [5]: b=2

In [6]: print(a+b,a-b)

5 1
Operators
There are two different classes of operators on any programming languages,

Arithmetic
Comparison
Logical

What do you think they are?

 Variables
To understand how the operators work, we have to study a bit deeper what a variable
mean.

In [7]: a=2
print(a)

The value 2 is saved in a .

a has a speci c physical place on the memory of the computer, so that every time we type
a the computer goes to that particular place and reads the value.
 As the computer doesn't understand the number 2 but binary instead, there is a huge
difference if we use

In [8]: a=2

In [9]: b=2.0

What do you think is the difference?

 Arithmetic Operators
To test them, let us explore some operators such as + , - , * , / , **

In [10]: a+b

Out[10]: 4.0

In [11]: a+a

Out[11]: 4
 NOTE: On different versions the python , you get different results.

In [12]: 1/a

Out[12]: 0.5

In [13]: 1/b

Out[13]: 0.5
 Let us use the method type

In [14]: type(a)

Out[14]: int

In [15]: type(b)

Out[15]: float

which means that, a is an integer, while b can have decimals

This have a huge impact but depends on the python version we are using, on different
languages such as C++ , you have to say which kind of variable you want, for instance

int a=2;
float b=2.0;
double c=2.0;

where float and double are data types that allow decimal points.
But, there are some other data types, one of great interest, they are called boolean .

boolean varialbes only have two different possible values True or False .

Depending on the language, they can be written differently, for example, in languages such
as c++ and julia , the possible values are written in lower case.

C++

bool test=true;

julia

test=true

test<-TRUE
While in python the rst letter must be upper case,
In [16]: test=True
Where do you think we can nd bools?
 Comparison Operators
In [17]: a>b

Out[17]: False

In [18]: a<b

Out[18]: False
Logic operators
Sometimes we will need to have a combination of conditions to satisfy on a particular
problem,

For example, the set of people on our course is different if we ask for

Female and prefer dogs to cats.

Female or prefer dogs to cats.

Think about the difference.

On other languages is common to use ! , || , && for negation, or and and. python is way
simpler, it uses

! for negation.
or for or.
and for and.
In [19]: a=True
b=False

In [20]: a and b

Out[20]: False

In [21]: a or b

Out[21]: True

In [22]: a=2
b=3

how can I ask if a and b are the same?

 Comparison equality

In [23]: a==b

Out[23]: False

In [24]: a==2.0

Out[24]: True
 Composed operators

In [25]: a>=b

Out[25]: False

You guys should take a look at Truth tables.

Now, we are ready to start working on a little bit more complex structures, such as control
statements
if statement
This is used for running some part of the code, only if a condition is satis ed.

python is based on identation rather than characters to the control statements such as
other languages can.

A python structure of an if structure goes as

if condition:
inside
outside

if the condition results to be True the inside part is executed, let see some examples.
In [26]: if True:
print('Inside of If')
print('Outside of If')

Inside of If
Outside of If

In [27]: if False:
print('Inside of If')
print('Outside of If')

Outside of If
In [28]: a=1
b=2
if a>b:
print('a is greater than b')
else:
print('b is greater that a')

b is greater that a
 but, what if a=b?

In [29]: a=1
b=1
if a>b:
print('a is greater than b')
elif a<b:
print('b is greater that a')
else:
print('b is equal to a')

b is equal to a

elif holds for else if

 for statement
The for is one of the loop structures that can be used on python , when a procedure
must be repeated

Again, we have to be careful with the indentation, so that

In [30]: suma=0
for i in range(101):
suma=suma+i
print(suma)

5050
lists
The for structure, have the huge advantage compared with languages such as C++ and
fortran , because of it allows to iterate on the compounds of a data type called list s.

A list is a set of things on python, the most important thing here is that one can use any
kind of thing inside a list, such that

lists
strings
Numbers: int or float
objects
pointers
...
 The only thing we have to consider is to make it inside of [] , let see some examples

In [31]: list1=[]
print(list1)
type(list1)

[]

Out[31]: list

In [32]: list2=[10]
print(list2,type(list2),type(list2[0]))

[10] <class 'list'> <class 'int'>

In [33]: list2=[1,2,3,4,5]
print(list2*2)

[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
 List on a for
In [34]: for i in ['value1', 'value2']:
print(i)

value1
value2

In [35]: list3=[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
for i in list3:
print(i)

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
 Then one can have more than one structure inside another, let see some examples

In [36]: for i in range(5):

if i == 2:
print('Inside first if')
elif i ==3:
print('Inside elif')
print('Inside for on loop: ',i)

Inside for on loop: 0

Inside for on loop: 1
Inside first if
Inside for on loop: 2
Inside elif
Inside for on loop: 3
Inside for on loop: 4
In [37]: for i in range(10):
if i%2==0:
print(i)

0
2
4
6
8
Next session, we will focus on string s and list s structures.