Python Programming

A Manual for Teachers

of

Leaving Certificate Computer Science

This work is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
ShareAlike 3.0 Ireland Licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ie/.
Please cite as: PDST, Leaving Certificate Computer Science v2.0, Python Workshop, Dublin, 2022

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page ii
Table of Contents

Section 1 – Getting Started 1

Hello World ……………………………………………………………………… 2
Language Syntax ……………………………………………………………..... 3
Basic Python Syntax …………………………………………………………… 5
Escape Sequences …………………………………………………………….. 8
Flow of Control ………………………………………………………………….. 10
Programming Exercises ……………………………………………………….. 12
BREAKOUT ACTIVITIES …………………………………………………… 13

Section 2 – Data, Variables, Assignments and Expressions 23

Introduction …………………………………………………………………….. 24
Variable Syntax ………………………………………………………………… 26
Datatypes and Operations ……………………………………………………. 29
Program Tracing ……………………………………………………………….. 31
Input-Process-Output ………………………………………………………….. 34
More Built in Functions ………………………………………………………… 40
The Remainder Operator (%) …………………………………………………. 41
Programming Exercises ……………………………………………………….. 43
Running Totals ………………………………………………………………….. 45
Introducing Random Numbers ………………………………………………… 47
Additional Notes ………………………………………………………………… 49
BREAKOUT ACTIVITIES ……………………………………………………… 51

Section 3 – Strings 63
Introduction ……………………………………………………………………… 64
String Indexing ………………………………………………………………….. 66
String Slicing ……………………………………………………………………. 70
String Addition and Multiplication …………………………………………….. 71
String Formatting ………………………………………………………………. 74
Built-in String Commands …………………………………………………….. 76
Coding Systems ……………………………………………………………….. 77

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page iii
 Programming Exercises ……………………………………………………….. 79
String Methods ………………………………………………………………….. 80
Additional Notes (Sequences) ………………………………………………… 83
BREAKOUT ACTIVITIES ……………………………………………………… 85

Section 4 – Lists 95
Introduction ……………………………………………………………………… 96
Creating Lists …………………………………………………………………… 97
Common List Operations ………………………………………………………. 99
List Indexing ……………………………………………………………………. 101
List Slicing ……………………………………………………………………….. 105
List Methods …………………………………………………………………….. 109
Two More String Methods (split and splitlines) …………………….. 111
BREAKOUT ACTIVITIES ……………………………………………………… 113

Section 5 – Programming Logic 120

Introduction ……………………………………………………………………… 121
Hangman! ……………………………………………………………………….. 122
Boolean Expressions …………………………………………………………… 124
The Guessing Game …………………………………………………………… 128
Selection (if, else, elif) ……………………………………………… 129
BREAKOUT ACTIVITIES (selection) ……………………………………….. 138
Iteration (for, while) ………………………………………………………... 141
BREAKOUT ACTIVITIES (iteration) 160

Section 6 – Modular Programming Using Functions 168

Introduction ……………………………………………………………………… 169
Basic Function Syntax …………………………………………………………. 177
Function Parameters and Arguments ………………………………………… 182
Function Return Values ……………...………………………………………… 187
Examples and Exercises …………...………………………………………….. 190
Boolean Functions ……………...………………………………………………. 194

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page iv
 Using Functions to Validate Data ……………………………………………... 199
Programming Exercises 6.1 ….……...………………………………………... 201
Recursion ……………...………………………………………………………… 205
Programming Exercises 6.2 ………………...…………………………………. 209
Programming Exercises 6.3 ………………...…………………………………. 210
BREAKOUT ACTIVITY 6.1 (ATM System) ………………………………….. 214
BREAKOUT ACTIVITY 6.2 (Summing Numbers) …………………………... 224
BREAKOUT ACTIVITY 6.3 (Turtle Graphics) ……………………………….. 228
BREAKOUT ACTIVITY 6.4 (Check Digits) …………………………………... 234

Section 7 – Dictionaries 242

Introduction ……………………………………………………………………… 243
Dictionary Definitions – some examples ……………………………………... 244
Creating Dictionaries – syntax ………………………………………………… 247
Indexing Dictionaries …………………………………………………………… 249
Adding, Changing and Deleting Dictionary Elements ………………………. 255
Programming Exercises 7.1 .………...………………………………………... 263
Iterating over dictionaries ……………………………………………………… 268
Dictionaries and Lists …………………………………………………………... 271
BREAKOUT ACTIVITY 7.1 (Frequency Counters) …………………………. 273

Appendices 280
Appendix A: Python Keywords ………………………………………………... 281
Appendix B: Python Built-in Functions ……………………………………….. 281
Appendix C: Python Assignment Operators …………………………………. 282
Appendix D: Python Arithmetic Operators …………………………………… 282
Appendix E: Python Relational Operators …………………………………… 282
Appendix F: Truth Tables for not, and, and or ………………………………. 283
Appendix G: Sample Solutions to Selected Problems ……………………… 284

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page v
Manual Overview
The purpose of this manual is to provide Leaving Certificate Computer Science (LCCS)
teachers with an enhanced knowledge of the Python programming language thereby
enabling them to independently improve their own programming skills.

Although the manual will serve as support material for teachers who attend the Python Skills
Workshops which are a key component in our two-year CPD programme for LCCS teachers,
it is envisaged that its real value will only come into play in the weeks and months after the
workshops have been delivered. Beyond these workshops, the manual may be used as a
basic language reference for Python, but more importantly, as a teaching resource that
might be used to promote in teachers, a constructivist pedagogic orientation towards the
planning and teaching of Python in the LCCS classroom.

The manual itself is divided into seven sections as follows:

- sections 1 and 2 cover basic, beginner programming concepts such as program
execution, flow of control, simple datatypes, variables, assignments and expressions
- sections 3 and 4 cover the two datatypes - strings and lists – and associated operations
- section 5 covers programming logic – specifically, Boolean expressions, selection and
iteration
- sections 6 and 7 cover more advanced Python programming topics such as functions
and dictionaries

Of course there is much more to Python than the material covered in this manual. Among
the more notable topics that are not explicitly addressed are, object-oriented programming
and classes, list comprehensions and exceptions. That said, every effort has been made to
ensure that the content contained here is adequate in order to mediate LCCS in the
classroom.

Throughout the manual there are lots of examples and related exercises. Readers will find it
helpful if they read (and try) the examples before attempting the exercises. The source code
from most of the examples are available to download from the PDST GitHub repository
(https://github.com/pdst-lccs/lccs-python) and links to sample solutions for many of the
programming exercises as are available at the end of the manual.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page vi
A high-level overview of the content of this manual is presented below.

Section 1 – Getting Started

The aim of this section is to get readers up and running. By the end of this section
participants should have a basic understanding of program execution, sequential processing,
strings, escape sequences and the importance of language syntax. Participants will have the
opportunity to write and modify simple programs. The section concludes with a practical
lab/breakout session which introduces turtle graphics and games programming using the
pygame library.

Section 2 – Data, Variables, Assignments and Expressions

This section will provide participants with a broad overview of the use of variables,
assignments and expressions. Participants will have the opportunity to learn how to initialise
simple variables as well as use an assignment statement to change its value. The
importance of data and datatype is made clear. Arithmetic expressions and the input
command are introduced. Participants learn how to apply these concepts through program
tracing, testing, the use of the remainder (modulus) operator, running totals and random
numbers. The section concludes with a practical lab/breakout session which as well as
building on some of the ‘projects’ started in Section 1, introduces some basic file i/o
operations.

Section 3 – Strings
In this section we will cover strings – basic sequence operations such as concatenation,
multiplication, indexing and slicing will be explained. Example programs will extend thinking
on coding systems and ciphers, and draw on the use the use of built-in functions - ord and
chr. String specific methods and formatting will also be explained. Participants will be given
a hands-on tour of the official online Python reference at https://docs.python.org/3/. The
section concludes with a practical lab/breakout session where participants will be given an
opportunity to write programs to generate web pages and analyse text from live RSS feeds.

Section 4 –Lists
The aim of this section is to extend participants knowledge of sequences through the
concept of lists. Motivation is provided through a discussion on the many real-world
applications of lists. List construction, indexing and slicing are explored in greater detail. The
section describes the most common list specific methods and how to use them. Examples of
how to use split and splitlines to generate lists are provided. The breakout activities

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page vii
at the end of this section includes the use of lists to construct random sentences, further
statistical analysis of data read in from a file of people’s heights, and finally, a program to
use lists as a basis for giving directions to a graphic turtle object.

Section 5 – Programming Logic (selection/conditions and iteration/loops)

This section explains the syntax and semantics of a number of programming constructs such
as if, elif, else, while and for statements. The emphasis throughout is on application
i.e. recognising situations where it is more appropriate to one of these control structures over
the other. Many of the examples are layered, based on a guessing game program. The
section concludes with a breakout session where participants will be able to consolidate their
learning and further develop their project work from the previous breakout sessions. The use
of plotly to present data in graphical format will also be introduced.

Section 6 – Modular Programming using Functions

The purpose of this section of the manual is to explain how functions can be used to
organise programs into logically related units of code. The architecture of a typical Python
program is presented and user-defined function are distinguished from built-in and library
functions. The syntax and semantics for defining and calling functions is explained, as is the
use of arguments/parameters to pass information into functions and return values to pass
information out of functions. The examples build on the programming concepts covered in
earlier sections and cover topics such as temperature/distance conversions, compound
interest/future value calculations, and maximum values. The use of Boolean functions to
perform tests such as to determine whether a number is prime or a given year a leap as well
as to validate data is explained. The chapter contains many programming exercises
designed to elicit the use of functions and structured programming and the topic of recursion
is also explored in some detail. The section concludes with a number of practical
lab/breakout session which can be adapted for use in the LCCS classroom.

Section 7 – Dictionaries
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a full overview of the dictionary data structure.
Particular emphasis is placed on discussing the similarities and differences between lists
and dictionaries. The final breakout session – based on frequency counting – is designed to
elicit the computational thinking skills such as abstraction, pattern recognition,
decomposition and algorithmic thinking.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page viii
Conventions
To help with navigation through this manual, the following conventions are used:
 Italics are used to highlight important new words and phrases defined
 Courier New font is used to denote Python code such as keywords, commands and
variable names

The icons illustrated below are used to highlight different types of information throughout this
manual.

Space to answer questions using pen and paper.

Python syntax rule.

Key technical point. A specific piece of information relating to some

aspect of programming.

Experiment. An opportunity to change code and see what happens.

Programming exercises. An opportunity for individuals/pairs to

practice their Python programming skills

Breakout Group Work. At the end of every section, readers will work
on a number of themed projects relevant to that section.

Reflection log. A space for the reader to reflect on their own learning
and record their thoughts.

Meet octocat! This is the GitHub integration symbol. Throughout this

manual you will notice this symbol appears along with the example
code. When you click on the octocat you will be directed to the source
code on GitHub. Readers are recommended to copy the code from
GitHub to their preferred Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

Blocks like the one shown above contain Boxes like these contain key messages to
example Python code pass on to novice programming students.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page ix
 Section 1

Getting Started

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 1
Installation and Setup
All of the examples in this manual were tested using Python 3.6.4. A standard installation of
Python 3.x and IDLE should be sufficient to run most of the examples and complete the
exercises in this manual. However, for some examples/exercises it will be necessary to
install third party libraries such as pygame and plotly.

Hello World
From your IDE create a new file (File -> New File).
Key in (or copy+paste from GitHub – see Key Point)
the Python statement exactly as it appears here:

KEY POINT: Instead of keying in this code you could click on the octocat and
your browser will direct you to the GitHub repository with this source file. From
this window you can select and copy the code and then paste it into your IDE.

Save the file (File -> Save) and press F5 to run.

If you see the text Hello World displayed in the shell window congratulations – you are up
and running. The output of the program is displayed in the shell window (output console).

Throughout this manual we will be creating new files, typing in or downloading the example
Python code provided. The aim is to get to the point where we can write our own code.

As teachers we should keep in mind that learning to program for the first time can be tricky –
there can be lots of stuff going on at the same time, and understanding the syntax of Python
can often seem to be more important than the real purpose of programming which is to
automate solutions to well defined problems.

The sooner students overcome the initial syntax barrier, the sooner they can focus on the
skill of problem solving and specifically the skill of using the features of Python to solve
problems.

Teachers should continually emphasise to novice programmers that Python is just a tool,
and the key skill lies in its application to solve problems.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 2
Another point well worth getting across to novice programmers at an early stage is the
difference between programmers and end-users.
 Programmers usually work as part of a team. They write and test the code that makes up
a computer system. Student programmers should be encouraged to bear the needs of
the end-user in mind i.e. see the system from the perspective of the end-user.
 An end-user is the person (or organisation) for whom a software system is developed.
End-users are the customers and, very often, do not know how to program.

Language Syntax
Most of us are already aware that natural languages such as English, French, German,
Polish etc. have their own rules. These rules make up the language grammar. The syntax of
a language is that part of the grammar which defines how sentences are constructed –
syntax is mostly concerned with legitimate words, symbols and the order in which they are
used.

In a similar way, all programming languages (e.g. Python, Java, JavaScript, C++, PHP, Perl
etc.) have their own syntax – this is called the language syntax.

One important aspect of Python’s syntax is its vocabulary i.e. the words and symbols that
Python understands.

Words can be keywords or commands. The list of all of Python’s 33 keywords is given below
– only some of these will be needed for LCCS.

False break else if not while

None class except import for with
True continue finally in pass yield
and def for is raise
as del from lambda return
assert elif global nonlocal try
Python 3.6.2 keywords

Programmers can add to Python’s vocabulary by defining their own words.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 3
The most common kinds of symbols in Python are operators – these can be arithmetic or
relational.

Python also understands white spaces (e.g. spaces, tabs, newlines), numbers and strings
(anything enclosed in quotation marks) – more on these later.

All programs must adhere to the syntax of the programming language in which they are
written. When a program does not conform to the language’s syntax it is said to contain a
syntax error. Such programs are said to be syntactically incorrect.

When you try to run a program that has a syntax error, Python displays a syntax error
message.

Comments are a way to tell Python to ignore syntax. They are used by programmers to
improve the readability of their code for the benefit of other programmers. Comments in
Python start with the hash character, # , and extend to the end of the physical line. When
Python comes across the hash character it ignores the rest of the text on that line

Reflection
Reflect on what you have learned about Python so far.

Use the space below to write five things that Python understands.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 4
Basic Python Syntax
We will now take a look at some of the basic syntax rules of Python and illustrate what
happens when these rules are broken.

Syntax Check #1:

Python is case sensitive. This means that Python treats upper and lower case letters
differently. For example, Python understands print but does not understand Print
Try running the following:

Print("Hello World")

You will see a message like this:

This is Python’s way of telling the programmer that the program contains a syntax error.
Python keywords and commands must all be typed in lower case.

Experiment!
Try the following line.
Make some changes - what happens?

What did you learn?

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 Syntax Check #2:
Use opening and closing brackets (parentheses) after the print command when you
want to display output. For every opening parenthesis there needs to be a matching
closing parenthesis.

Try running the following:

print "Hello World")

You will see a syntax error displayed in a message box like the one shown below because
the opening parenthesis is missing.

Experiment!
Try each of the following 3 lines separately.

What did you learn?

What happens if you put a space either side of the brackets?

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 6
Syntax Check #3:
When you want to display text using the print command, the text must to be enclosed
inside matching quotation marks. If either, or both, quotation marks are missing, a syntax
error message is displayed.

Experiment: Try each of the following lines separately.

print(Hello World)
print("Hello World)
print(‘Hello World’)
print("Hello World’)

Quotation marks can be single (’) or double (") – it does not matter as long as they match.

Python is not too fussy about what you type inside quotation marks. Outside quotation
marks, Python is very limited in what it understands. One thing Python understands outside
quotation marks is number. Numbers do not have to be enclosed inside quotations.

Each of the following lines are syntactically correct. (Try them!)

KEY POINT: The technical word for text is string. A string is any text enclosed
inside quotation marks.

Notice from the fine three lines in the above example how print allows strings and
numbers to be separated by commas.

Write a Python program to display the text Hello, my name is Sam!

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 7
Escape Sequences
Let’s say we wanted to display the following text exactly – including the quotation marks.

In the words of Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon which we can use
to change the world”

The line below does not work because in the ‘eyes’ of Python the second quotation closes
the first and the remainder of the line is not understood.

To fix the syntax error we escape the second quotation using the backslash character, \, as
follows:

In the above example the use of \" tells Python include the double quotes as part of the
string (as opposed to treating it as the closing quote).

The backslash character introduces an escape sequence in a string. Some common escape
sequence characters are illustrated in the table below:

Escape Sequence Meaning

\n Newline
\t Tab
\’ Single Quote
\” Double Quote
\\ Backslash

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 8
 Experiment!
Try the following and see if you can explain what is going on.

What was the main thing you learned in this section about escape
sequences?

What one question about escape sequences do you still have?

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 9
Flow of Control
The flow of control refers to the order in which the lines of a computer program are run by
the computer. Normally lines are executed in the same sequence in which they appear. This
type of flow is called sequential. We use the following four-line program to illustrate this
concept.

When this program is run, execution starts at line 1 which causes the string, As I was going
out one day, to be displayed on the output console. Execution then moves sequentially
through lines 2, 3 and 4 and finally, the program ends as there are no more lines to execute.

The table below illustrates the program output be after each line is executed.

Line Number Program Output

1 As I was going out one day

As I was going out one day

2
My head fell off and rolled away,

As I was going out one day

3 My head fell off and rolled away,
But when I saw that it was gone,

As I was going out one day

My head fell off and rolled away,
4
But when I saw that it was gone,
I picked it up and put it on.

In reality, we only see the final output after line 4 is executed – this is because the program
is executed so fast by the computer. Nonetheless, it is important for students to understand
that for the computer to get to the final stage it had to pass through the other stages on the
way.

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 Indentation
Indentation refers to the empty space(s) at the beginning of a line of code.

Python is very fussy about indentation - try to run the following:

Notice that the second line contains a leading space. This is an indentation error.

The following syntax error is displayed when a program contains an indentation error.

Syntax Check: Every line of Python code must be properly indented.

Proper indentation means logically related lines (called blocks of code) appear at the same
level of indentation.

In the above example indentation is not needed but – as we will see later – it is sometimes
necessary to indent code.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 11
 Programming Exercises

1. Write a program to display your own name and address.

2. Re-arrange the lines of code below into a program that displays the pattern shown on the
right. Note that you can use any line as often as you like, but you won’t need to use
every line.

3. Reflect on what you have learned about Python so far. Use the space below to write
three things that Python likes and three things that Python does not like.

Python likes …

1.

2.

3.

Python does not like …

1.

2.

3.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 12
 BREAKOUT ACTIVITIES

The focus on these activities is on getting used to the Python programming environment and
in particular sequential flow of control.

BREAKOUT 1.1: Automated Teller Machine (ATM) Menu System

The Python program below displays the ATM menu shown on the right hand side.

Suggested Activities
1. Key in the above program or download it from GitHub and
- make some changes to the program (e.g. add/remove/edit a menu option)
- discuss traditional console menus vs. GUI/touch screen interfaces
- discuss possible logic behind the options

2. Design and implement a menu for some other application of your choice e.g. what are
the options on your favourite app? What additional options would you like?
(For this exercise it is useful to think of a system from an end-user’s perspective.)

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 13
BREAKOUT 1.2: Turtle Graphics
Turtle graphics is a popular way for introducing programming to novice programmers. It was
part of the original Logo programming language developed by Wally Feurzig and Cynthia
Solomon in consultation with Seymour Paper in 1966.

The movements of the turtle graphic object can be compared to the movements that you
would see if you were looking down at a real turtle inside a rectangular shaped box. The
program below causes the shape/pattern shown to the right to be drawn out on the screen.

Program Listing Shape

Program Explanation
 Line 1 tells Python to import a library called ‘turtle’. A library can be thought of as an
external Python program that contains useful code. from and import are two Python
keywords. When a library is imported into a program the functionality of that library can
then be used in that program.
 The commands on lines 3 to 9 inclusive instruct Python to move the turtle forward and
turn it left/right until the shape is drawn.

Students should be reminded to close the turtle window once they have finished running
your program. The window can be closed by clicking on in the top right corner.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 14
Suggested Activities
1. Read lines 3-9 of the program and see if you can figure out how the shape is created

2. Type the program in and run it. (Warning! Do not save the program as turtle.py)

3. Insert comment on lines 5 – 9 inclusive. (Lines 3 and 4 are already commented.)

4. Rearrange lines 3 - 9 into different orders and see if you can explain
the change in output. You can delete some lines if you wish.

5. Experiment with the numbers used on lines 3 – 9 until you

understand what they mean. For example, you could change 100 to
50 on line 3, or change 90 to 45 on line 8.

6. Modify the program so that it displays the shape shown to the right

Some of the more common movement commands supported by the turtle library are
outlined below.

Command Explanation
This command moves the turtle forward by n units from whatever
forward(n)
position the turtle is facing at the time the command is issued
When this command is issued it moves the turtle in the opposite
backward(n) direction to whatever direction the turtle is facing. The turtle is moved
by n units from its current position.
This command turns the turtle in a rightwards direction. The amount
right(angle)
of turn is specified by the programmer using angle.
This command turns the turtle in a leftwards direction. The amount of
left(angle)
turn is specified by the programmer using angle.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 15
Further Activities
The default starting position for the turtle is the centre of the screen with an arrow pointing to
the right (i.e. east). It is up to the programmer to keep a track of the position of the turtle on
the screen and the direction it is facing.

The best way to learn how to use turtles is to experiment. The following exercise might help.

1. Match each code block (numbered below) to the corresponding shape (denoted by
letters).

1. A.

2. B.

3. C.

4. D.

Note: Before running any of the above blocks of code you will need to add the line
from turtle import * before the turtle commands.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 16
2. Now demonstrate that your answers are correct!
Do this by keying in and running each of the separate code blocks.

3. The commands listed below can be used to change the appearance of turtle objects

Command Explanation
This command sets the appearance of the turtle object to be whatever
shape is specified by s. Valid values are arrow, turtle, circle,
shape(s)
square, triangle and classic. (Use quotation marks.) The arrow
shape is the default.
When this command is used it makes the turtle object disappear from
hideturtle()
the output screen.

showturtle() This command makes the turtle visible again.

This command sets the colour of the lines drawn by the turtle to be the
color(c) colour specified by 𝑐. Try different values e.g. red, blue, green.
(Don’t forget to use quotation marks either side of the named colour.)
This command sets the line thickness of the line drawn by turtle
pensize(n) movements. The value of n can be any number from 1 to 10 where 1 is
the thinnest and 10 is the thickest. Try it!

Write a Python program to display the shapes shown below.

A vertical blue line of

A 50x100 red The letter T in red
A 50x50 square length 100 units and
rectangle (pen is hidden)
thickness 5 units

Can you come up with more than one solution for each shape? Compare and discuss your
solutions with your classmates.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 17
BREAKOUT 1.2: Games Programming with pygame
pygame1 is a free and open source Python library useful for games programming. As it does
not come with the standard Python installation, pygame needs to be installed separately.

When the program shown below is run it causes the output window illustrated to the right to
be displayed. The output window contains 5 different shapes – a blue horizontal line, a green
diagonal line, a white rectangle, a red circle and red ellipse. These shapes are drawn in
response to the commands on lines 15 to 19.

Read the code carefully – focus your attention on lines 15 to 19 (highlighted in bold) - and
see if you can guess which line of code is responsible for drawing which shape.

Program Listing Output Window

The individual lines of code are explained on the next page.

Programmers are often presented with code they have not written themselves and need to
figure out for themselves what the code does. One tried and trusted method used by
programmers to familiarise themselves with ‘new’ code is to ‘play with it’ i.e. make small
incremental changes to build up an understanding. Try the following suggested activities.

1
https://www.pygame.org

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 18
Suggested Activities
1. Key in (or copy+paste from GitHub) the full program and make sure it runs properly.

2. Devise your own theories about the code. For example, you might suspect that line 15
draws the blue horizontal line. In order to test this theory, you could comment out lines
16, 17, 18 and 19 and then run your program to see if you are correct.
This process should be repeated until you have confirmed your understanding of which
line of code is responsible for which shape.

3. Experiment by rearranging lines 15-19 into different orders. Each time you jumble them
around, run your program to see if they make any difference to the output displayed.

4. Change the code so that the shapes are displayed in different colours

5. Modify the numbers used in the commands used to draw the lines and the rectangle
(lines 15, 16 and 17). Can you figure out what the numbers mean?

Co-ordinate System
The diagram below explains the window co-ordinate system used by pygame.

The co-ordinates of the four corners of a

window having width, 𝑤 and height, ℎ are:

(0, 0) top left

(𝑤, 0) top right
(0, ℎ) bottom left
(𝑤, ℎ) bottom right

window co-ordinate system used by pygame

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 19
 Game Loop
You may have noticed that the output window
does not close. To fix this problem you will
need to make two changes
a) Modify line 1 as shown
b) Add the (game loop) code shown here to
the end of the program listing.

Program Explanation
 Line 1 imports the pygame and sys libraries into the program. pygame contains
functionality that our program can use to draw shapes.
 Line 4 tells Python to initialise (i.e. start) the pygame engine
 Line 5 tells Python to create an output window of width 400 units and height 500 units
 Lines 9 to 12 define the primary colours BLACK, RED, GREEN, BLUE and WHITE.
These names are now known to Python and can be used further down in the program.
 Lines 15 instructs Python to draw a horizontal blue line. The co-ordinates of the start and
end positions are provided along with codes for the colour and line thickness.
 Lines 16 instructs Python to draw a diagonal green line. The co-ordinates of the start and
end positions are provided along with codes for the colour and line thickness.
 Lines 17 instructs Python to draw a white rectangle. The co-ordinates of the upper left
corner are provided along with values for the width and height.
 Lines 21 tells Python update the display window with the new shapes.

Log your thoughts.

How has your knowledge of programming been extended so far?

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 20
Further pygame activities
1. The commands on lines 17, 18 and 19 draw a rectangle, circle and ellipse respectively.
Modify the numbers used inside the brackets. Can you figure out what the numbers
mean?

2. Study the program listing on the next page carefully.

When the program is run, it displays the first three rows of the pattern as shown.

The background is painted white by

the fill command, so, in actual
fact, the program draws four black
squares on each of the three rows.

Each individual black square is

drawn in response to the command
pygame.draw.rect. The squares
are 50 × 50 units in size.

There is a problem however.

The programmer had intended the

program to display the chequer
board pattern shown here to the
right.

Can you make the necessary changes?

How might the program differ if the background was painted BLACK instead of white?

3. Calculate the co-ordinates of the centre of a 400x500 window.

Can you generalise this calculation with a formula that would work for a window of any
size?

4. Write a program to display a circle centred on the output window. (You choose the size!)
Generalise your solution so that it works for any window size.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 21
Modify the program below so that it displays the first three rows of a proper chequer board
pattern.

import pygame, sys

from pygame.locals import *

# start the pygame engine

pygame.init()

# create a 400x400 window

window = pygame.display.set_mode((400, 400))
pygame.display.set_caption('Chequer Board')

# define some colors

BLACK = (0, 0, 0)
WHITE = (255, 255, 255)

window.fill(WHITE) # paint the window white

# Draw Row 1
pygame.draw.rect(window, BLACK, (0, 0, 50, 50))
pygame.draw.rect(window, BLACK, (100, 0, 50, 50))
pygame.draw.rect(window, BLACK, (200, 0, 50, 50))
pygame.draw.rect(window, BLACK, (300, 0, 50, 50))
# Draw Row 1
pygame.draw.rect(window, BLACK, (0, 50, 50, 50))
pygame.draw.rect(window, BLACK, (150, 50, 50, 50))
pygame.draw.rect(window, BLACK, (200, 50, 50, 50))
pygame.draw.rect(window, BLACK, (350, 50, 50, 50))
# Draw Row 1
pygame.draw.rect(window, BLACK, (50, 100, 50, 50))
pygame.draw.rect(window, BLACK, (100, 100, 50, 50))
pygame.draw.rect(window, BLACK, (300, 100, 50, 50))
pygame.draw.rect(window, BLACK, (350, 100, 50, 50))

# update the window display

pygame.display.update()

# run the game loop

while True:
for event in pygame.event.get():
if event.type == QUIT:
pygame.quit()
sys.exit()

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 22
 Section 2

Data, Variables, Assignments and

Expressions

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 23
Introduction
So let’s say we wanted to write a program to display the name of a person and their favourite
colour in a greeting string and then display a personalised goodbye message. We could
write:

One problem with the above program is that the string Alex appears twice and this gives rise
to the possibility of a mismatch in spelling. It would be better if had some way of telling our
program to remember the person’s name. This can be done by using a variable.

KEY POINT: A variable is a programming construct used to store (remember) data.

The listing below uses two variables – personName and favouriteColour.

The variable personName is used to store a person’s name and the variable
favouriteColour is used to store the person’s favourite colour.

The variables are declared on lines 1 and 2 respectively. Each line assigns the initial values
Alex and red to the respective variables.

KEY POINT: A variable must be declared before it can be used. By declaring a

variable you are telling Python here is a new word and this is its initial value.

Line 3 displays the contents of the variables in a greeting string. Notice that the names of the
variables appear outside the double quotations, and also the use of commas to delimit the
variables from the greeting string.

When Python comes across the variable names in the print command it substitutes the
values of the variables into the string to be displayed.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 24
The name of the person or the colour can now be changed, simply by changing the value of
the variable. For example, we could write:

The program is considered better because the person’s name is stored in a variable and
needs to be keyed in by the programmer only once. However, the program still has a
problem in that it lacks generality i.e. it only works for one person and one colour. Every time
we want to display a different message we need to change the program.

A more general (and realistic) solution would be to ask the user to enter their name and
favourite colour. This can be achieved using the input command as follows:

Try running the above program for yourself.

The input command

The input command allows a user to enter a value into a running program and have that
value stored in a variable.

The string in brackets following the word input is displayed as a prompt to the end-user.

Every time the above program is run, whatever values are entered by the end-user are
stored in the variables personName and favouriteColour. These values are then
displayed in the output messages.

Without having to make any changes to the program, the output messages can vary on
every run. This is an example of a general solution to a problem.

The input (and print) commands are both examples of Python built in functions. The
complete list of Python built in functions can be found in the appendix.

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Variable Syntax
The general syntax for declaring a variable is made up of a left hand side and a right hand
side as follows:

<variable-name> = <expression>

The name of the variable appears on the left hand side and an expression appears on the
right hand side. The ‘=’ symbol in the middle is the Python assignment operator.

KEY POINT: Although the symbols used to denote the Python assignment operator
and a mathematical equation are identical, they should not be confused as they
mean two completely different things.

The use of ‘=’ in Python indicates an assignment statement. When Python comes across
an assignment statement it evaluates the expression on the right hand side first. The result
of this evaluation is then stored in the variable named on the left hand side.

The expression on the right hand side can be:

- a literal value such as a string or a number
- an arithmetic expression (which itself can contain variables)
- the name of a built-in command such as input, as seen in the previous example.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 26
 This is an exercise about vocabulary.
The graphic below shows six Python assignment statements and six
(incomplete) English sentences.

Complete the sentences on the right so that each one describes its
corresponding assignment statement on the left.

Once a variable has been declared the name is added to Python’s vocabulary for the
remainder of the program.

It is up to the programmer to decide what name to give their variables. The rules and
guidelines for naming variables are described on the next page.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 27
Guidelines and Rules for Naming Variables
As a general guideline variable names should be simple and meaningful. A meaningful name
is one that tells something about what the variable is used for. The use of meaningful
variable names makes programs more readable and understandable to fellow programmers.

When choosing a name for a variable it can be helpful to think of a noun that describes the
purpose of the variable.

It is considered good practice to capitalise interior words in multi-word variable names. This
usage is referred to as camel case and firstName, addressLine1, stockCount,
highScore, and payRate are all examples of good variable names.

The syntax rules for naming variables are as follows:

 A variable name cannot be Python keyword (e.g. “import” “def”, etc.)
 Variable names must contain only letters, digits, and the underscore character, _.
 Variable names cannot have a digit for the first character.
 Spaces or dots are not allowed in a variable name

If Python comes across a name it does not understand it will display a syntax error.

Which of the following are ‘legal’ variable names?

a) student.Number
b) x
c) 1x
d) x1
e) input
f) number
g) 20
h) h20
i) PPSN
j) ppsn
k) person name
l) address
m) date_of_birth
n) 2+4
o) print

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 28
Datatypes and Operations
Programmers need to be aware of the type of data that their programs process. This is
referred to as datatype.

Thus far, we have encountered examples of both string and numeric datatypes. If, for
example, we wanted a program to store someone’s name or favourite colour the variable’s
datatype would be string. On the other hand, a numeric datatype is the proper datatype for a
variable to store a person’s age or height.

Python supports several different types of numbers - integers, floating point numbers as well
as a range or more exotic types of numbers (e.g. complex numbers, fixed precision decimals
and rational numbers)

Every datatype in Python has a permissible set of operations that are only valid for that type.
(For this reason, Python is said to be a strongly typed language.) The numeric datatype
supports all the usual arithmetic operations such as addition, multiplication etc. These are
illustrated in the table below (assume x=7 and y=3)

The normal precedence rules for arithmetic operators apply.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 29
Reflection
Reflect on what you have learned about variables, datatypes and expressions so far.

Use the space provided to document what extended your thinking

about variables, datatypes, and expressions

Indicate in the space below those areas relating to variables,

datatypes, and expressions that you don’t fully understand yet

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 30
Program Tracing
Computers can execute programs at a rate of millions of lines per second. The values of
variables can change so fast that programmers can easily lose track and sometimes find it
difficult to be sure that their program logic is correct. In order to combat this, programmers
often execute a program manually i.e. using pen and paper to keep track of variables line-
by-line. This activity, called program tracing is used by programmers to verify for themselves
that their program will do what it is intended to when it is run by the computer.

We trace through the program shown (as if we were the

computer) line-by-line, starting at line 1. Every time a
variable is declared for the first time we draw a box and
write the value of the variable in the box. When the value of
a variable changes we replace the old value with the new
one. This activity is called program tracing.

The Python code is shown on the left below and the variables are illustrated as boxes on the
right. The boxes are used to represent memory locations i.e. they are part of a notional
machine used by programmers to keep track of the state of their variables at runtime.

The program displays the contents of y i.e. 8

The program displays 9

The program displays 8

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 31
 Exercise: Program Tracing
Manually trace the programs shown below. (Use the space provided on
the next page.) Can you figure out what each program does?
PROGRAM 1

PROGRAM 2 PROGRAM 3

PROGRAM 4

PROGRAM 5

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 32
 Tracing notes

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 33
Input-Process-Output
Many computer programs follow the input-process-output model as illustrated.

This means that a program accepts data as input, carries out some processing (usually a
calculation) and then displays and/or stores the output.

We already know the input command is used to prompt an end-user to enter a value into a
running program. The value entered can then be stored in a variable.

KEY POINT: programmers need to be acutely aware of the type of data with which
their program is working.

By default, the input command returns a string. This means that if you want your program
to accept numeric data from the end-user, the value entered must be converted from a string
to either an integer or a floating point (i.e. a decimal) number.

Fortunately, Python has two built-in commands that can perform these conversions. These
are called int and float respectively.

Built-in Function Description

int(s) Converts the string ‘s’ to an integer. The result is a new number
object

Converts the string ‘s’ to a floating point (decimal) number. The

float(s)
result is a new floating point object

The two commands int and float are important because they allow Python to use values
entered by the end-user in arithmetic expressions.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 34
Example – Year of Birth
We want to write a program to calculate a person’s year of birth.

Our program will ask the end-user for two pieces of information - the current year and the
age they will be at the end of the current year.

We will store this data in two variables – year and age.

Since year and age are both numeric we will need to instruct the program to convert them
from strings to integers. This can be done with the int command.

The solution is as follows.

Lines 1 and 2 both display a prompt asking the user to enter values and then convert these
values from strings to integers. The conversion from string to integer is needed here
because Python knows how to subtract numbers but cannot subtract strings.

Line 3 subtracts the two integers (to calculate the year of birth) and displays the result in an
output message.

Notice how both int and input are called on the same line. When commands are
combined together on the same line like this it is called function composition. Python
executes the innermost function first and then works back towards the leftmost function
which is executed last.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 35
It is important to understand the subtle difference between the string “2018” and the numeric
value 2018. One difference is subtraction is supported for numbers but not for strings

KEY POINT: The operations that can be carried out on values are constrained by
the value’s underlying object type. For example, subtraction is not supported for
strings.

Syntax Check: Try running the following program:

You will see an error like this:

Since the values are not converted to integers Python stores them as strings. The
expression year-age on line 3 is an attempt to subtract two strings which is not allowed in
Python. Python does not support the subtraction operation on strings.

It is also worth noting that numbers can be converted to string objects using the str
function. As an experiment try running the following lines of code separately:

This causes the following error to be displayed

TypeError: must be str, not int

This causes the string “200018” to be displayed.

KEY POINT: The ‘+’ operator for strings means concatenation.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 36
Example – Temperature Conversion
Let’s look at another example of a program that accepts an input, performs some processing
and displays an output. The program below converts Centigrade to Fahrenheit. The formula
used is,
9
𝑓= × 𝑐 + 32
5

The input is the Centigrade value entered by the end-user; the processing is the conversion
(done by applying the formula); and the output is the Fahrenheit value displayed.

The use of the float command on line 2 above means that the user can enter decimal
values for Centigrade. (Integer values are also permitted.)

Notice how both float and input are combined together on the same line.

Use the space provided to write down what you think would
happen if the float command was removed from the above
function. Why do you think int was not used?

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 37
A note on Testing
The purpose of testing is to verify that the program does what it is meant to.

It is normal practice for programmers to devise a number of test cases as part of the
program design process. Each test case is made up of an input and an expected output.

When the test case is run the actual output should be recorded. If there is a difference
between the expected and actual output, then the program contains an error (or bug) which
will need to be fixed.

The table below provides a good basis for testing the Centigrade to Fahrenheit program
shown on the previous page. Each row in the table is a separate test case.

Sample Expected Actual Note that the values in the sample input
Input (℃) Output (℉) Output column are arbitrarily chosen. The expected
0 32.0
output values are calculated by using a
32 89.6
1000 1832.0 calculator or come from some other source
-10 14.0 e.g. world wide web. The values in the
-40 -40.0 actual output column should be recorded by
-1000 -1768.0
running the program.

When the program passes all test cases it is said to be unit tested.

A good unit test will ensure that every line of code is triggered. It will also take ‘abnormal’
scenarios into consideration

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 38
Reflection
Examine the program below in terms of input(s), processing and output(s).

Use the space below to record your reflection.

Questions to consider might include:

1. What are the inputs? What processing is done? What is the output?

2. What would happen if all or any of lines 3, 7 and 11 were removed from the program?

3. How could the code be made more terse?

Write an additional line of Python code to calculate the new principal.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 39
More built-in functions
Let’s take another look at our temperature conversion program discussed earlier.

This time try an input value of 21℃. The program displays the output shown below – the
number of digits displayed after the decimal point is unnecessary and unwieldly.
21.0 degrees C equals 69.80000000000001 degrees F

The level of precision displayed can be controlled by the programmer by using the round
function. Line 4 tells Python to display the value of fahrenheit rounded to 1 decimal place.

A full description of the round function is given in the table below along with some other
useful build-in functions offered by Python.

Function Description Example(s)

Rounds the number x to

n fractional digits from
round(x [,n]) the decimal point. If n is
not provided it is taken to
be zero.

Returns the absolute

abs(x)
value of x

Calculates x to the power

pow(x, y)
of y. (Same as x**y)

Can you predict what output would be displayed by this line of code?

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 40
The Remainder Operator (%)
The remainder operator, % (aka modulus operator), like all of the other Python arithmetic
operators, is a binary operator i.e. it works on two numbers, referred to as operands.

The comments (in red) in the short Python program below describe how examples of the
remainder operator works.

It should be evident that the remainder operator works by dividing the second operand into
the first. Whatever is left over is the result of applying the remainder operator.

The word mod (short for modulus) is often used to phrase questions or answers involving the
remainder operator. For example, what is 30 mod 10, or 9 mod 5 is equal to 1. Furthermore,

 𝑎 𝑚𝑜𝑑 𝑎 𝑖𝑠 𝑧𝑒𝑟𝑜 because any number divided by itself leaves no remainder

 𝑎 𝑚𝑜𝑑 1 𝑖𝑠 𝑧𝑒𝑟𝑜 because 1 divides every number evenly
 𝑎 𝑚𝑜𝑑 0 𝑖𝑠 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑑 because division by zero is not defined. In Python any attempt to
divide by zero will always result in a runtime error.

Computer Science contains a rich set of problems whose solutions involve using the
remainder operator. The application of the remainder operator to solve problems is referred
to as modular arithmetic and because modular arithmetic is particularly useful for
calculations involving time, it is also referred to as clock arithmetic.

For example, let’s say wanted to find out what day of the week it will be in 1000 days’ time.
We know every week has 7 days, and can calculate 1000 mod 7 to be 6. Therefore, the day
of the week in 1000 days will be the same day as it will be 6 days from now.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 41
The same general principal can be applied to working solutions to problems involving other
units of time such as seconds, minutes, hours, months, years, leap years, Easter etc.

Let’s take another example. You are about to embark on a space journey lasting 850,000
hours! Take off time is exactly 21:00h. What time will it be when you reach your destination?

arrivalTime = (21 + 850000) % 24

print("You will arrive at", arrivalTime)

Modular arithmetic is also useful in situations where it is required to group ‘things’ (e.g.
people) into a fixed number of arbitrary sized groups. For example, if we had a group of 20
students in a class and we wanted to create four arbitrary sized groups, we could ask each
student to pick a random number – let’s call it N. Then N mod 4 will guarantee a group
number for that student because it will always be 0, 1, 2 or 3.

Another useful application is simply to find the properties of numbers. For example, mod 2 is
frequently used in computer programs to test whether a number is even or not (evenness
test).

Perhaps, some of the most common applications of modular arithmetic can be found in the
area of coding systems, ciphers and cryptography. Ubiquitous examples exist in the use of
modular arithmetic to perform validity checks on barcodes, ISBN numbers and credit card
numbers (e.g. Luhn’s algorithm) to name just a few. For example, a 13-digit barcode is valid
only if the following expression is evenly divisible by 10.

(𝑑1 + 𝑑3 + ⋯ + 𝑑13) + 3 × (𝑑2 + 𝑑4 + ⋯ + 𝑑12)

where, 𝑑1 is the leftmost and 𝑑13 the rightmost barcode digit. If the expression mod 10 is
not equal to zero, the barcode is invalid and the scanned item will be rejected.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 42
 Programming Exercises
1. Write a program to calculate and display the total from the bill below.
5 x mars bars @ €1 each
4 x cans of coke @ €1.50 each
3 x bags of crisps @ 80 cents each
2 x cups of tea @ €2 euro each
1 x slice pan @ €3.50 each

Hint: Just re-arrange the lines of code shown here.

2. Re-arrange the jumbled up lines shown below so that the program displays the sum of
two integers entered by the end-user.
Warning! There are three extra lines that you won’t need.

3. Given the following formula to convert Fahrenheit (𝑓) to Centigrade (𝑐) write a program to
prompt a user to read in ℉ and display its ℃ equivalent correct to 2 decimal places.
5
𝑐 = (𝑓 − 32) ×
9

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 43
4. Write a program to find the day of the week for any date using Zeller’s Algorithm.

In Zeller’s algorithm the year is assumed to begin in March.

Months are numbered as: 3 for March, 4 for April, … 13 for January and 14 for February.
January 1997 is treated as month 13 of 1996.

The formula is as follows:

13(𝑚𝑚 + 1) 𝑦 𝑐
𝑤 = (𝑑𝑑 + ⌊ ⌋ + 𝑦 + ⌊ ⌋ + ⌊ ⌋ − 2𝑐) 𝑚𝑜𝑑 7
5 4 4

where,
w is the calculated weekday. (𝑆𝑎𝑡 = 0, 𝑆𝑢𝑛 = 1, 𝑀𝑜𝑛 = 2, … 𝐹𝑟𝑖 = 6)

dd is the day of the month (e.g. for 25/12/1989, dd is 25)

mm is the shifted month, 𝑀𝑎𝑟 = 3, 𝐴𝑝𝑟 = 4, … , 𝐽𝑎𝑛 = 13, 𝐹𝑒𝑏 = 14.

(e.g. for 25/12/1989 mm is 12)

y is the last 2 digits of the year - remember the year is minus 1 for January or February

and the actual year for any other month. (e.g. for 25/12/1989 y is 89)

c is the first 2 digits of the year (e.g. for 25/12/1989 y is 19)

Hint: You need to decide what inputs you need from the end-user and what inputs to the
formulae you can derive from these user inputs.

Test your program using the following data:

Expected Actual
Date
Output Output
25/12/1989 2
01/01/2000 0
22/11/1963 6
Your Birthday! ?

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 44
Running Totals
Running totals are needed so often in programs that it is well worth putting some effort into
understanding the pattern used to create them.

A running total is a value that usually starts at zero and increases by successive additions
until a final total is reached. A very common example is a shopping basket total calculated at
a checkout.

Let’s say we have three items in our basket and they are valued at €10, €14 and €6
respectively. With very little effort, most people understand that the total bill is €30. However,
what most people probably don’t realise is that they have (subconsciously) run a running
total program similar to that shown below in their own heads.

Novice programmers may find the following tips for dealing with running totals useful:
1. Recognise the need for a running total (this is probably the most difficult step)
2. Initialise your running total variable to zero (line 4 above)
3. Every time you need to add a value to the running total use an assignment (lines 8, 10
and 12 above). Notice the only difference between these lines is the name of the variable
being added to runningTotal.

KEY POINT: The hallmark of the running total pattern is the runningTotal
variable appears on both sides of the assignment statement. In this way it is used to
update itself.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 45
 Can you re-order the lines in the previous listing without
breaking the code?

What one question do you still have in relation to running totals?

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 46
Introducing Random Numbers
Random numbers provide a rich way of generating numeric data in early stage
programming. A more advanced application of random number generation is in games
programming.

The following two programs demonstrate random number generation.

The first multiplies two randomly generated numbers and displays the result; the second
computes the mean of five randomly generated numbers.

Study both programs carefully – paying particular attention to the comments in red - and
then answer the questions on the next page in relation to the second program listing.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 47
 Explain the purpose of the variables low and high.

Why do you think the variable low is used on line 5?

Explain why the brackets are necessary on line 15

Can you recognise how the running total pattern could be

used in this program?

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 48
Additional Notes

1. Variables and Memory

When a variable is assigned a value for the very first time it is said to be initialised. We say a
variable is initialised to a value. Memory for the variable is allocated at runtime when the
variable is initialised.

Internally, Python maintains a system table with one entry per variable. The values are
represented in memory as objects and a reference links the variable to the object.

KEY POINT: In Python variables are actually references to objects.

The diagrams below illustrate what happens when we initialise the variable x to 5 and then
assign a new value to it.

Memory representation following the Conceptual, memory representation

statement x = 5 following the statement x = x+1

Conceptually, the value of a variable changes. The old value seems to be replaced with a
new value. Technically, what happens is illustrated as follows:

The old value remains on in memory, and the variable that referenced it before the
assignment now references the new value.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 49
It is for this reason that objects such as strings and numbers are said to be immutable.

Finally, note that the original number object i.e. 5 in this case is left without a reference.
Unreferenced values are referred to as dangling objects. Such objects are automatically
returned by Python, to memory, in a process known as garbage collection.)

2. Python Assignment Operators

In addition to the simple assignment operator introduced and used throughout this section,
Python supports a variety of other more compact assignment operators.

These are given here for the sake of completeness. (Assume x=7 and y=3)

Unlike C++, Java and some other programming languages, Python does not provide built-in
support for the unary increment and decrement operators (e.g. − − x and y + +).

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 50
 BREAKOUT ACTIVITIES

BREAKOUT 2.1: Turtle Graphics

Variables, assignments and operations can be used to dynamically vary the dimensions of
turtle shapes.

1. Predict what pattern would be generated by the each of the following program listings.

Program Listing 1 Program Listing 2

Explain the main difference between the two program listings

shown above

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 51
2. Match each code block (numbered below) with the correct shape (denoted by letters and
drawn to scale).

1. A.

2. B.

3. C.

4. D.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 52
3. Modify the program below so that the angle size is increased by 135° before each turn.
The modified program should display the pattern illustrated to the right

4. Implement the following pseudo-code in Python to display the pattern illustrated

Initialise a variable called angle to 30

Move forward by 50 units
Turn left by angle degrees
Increase the angle by 10°
Move forward by 50 units
Turn right by angle degrees
Increase the angle by 10°
Move forward by 50 units
Turn left by angle degrees
Increase the angle by 10°
Move forward by 50 units

5. Write a Python program to display five lines of random length. Each line should be joined
to the next at a randomly sized angle.

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BREAKOUT 2.2: Automated Teller Machine (ATM) Menu System
Recall from Section 1 the menu system for our fictional LCCS bank.

Use the knowledge you have gained so far to convert the pseudo-code shown to the right of
the menu below into Python.

Display a welcome message

Initialise a variable called balance to 123.45
Display the value of balance
Prompt the user to enter an amount to lodge
Increase the balance by the amount entered
Display the value of balance
Prompt the user to enter an amount to withdraw
Decrease the balance by the amount entered
Display the value of balance

Hint: You will need to consider what variables you will need as well as their datatype.

Log your thoughts.

What did you find most/least challenging about this task?

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 54
BREAKOUT 2.3: Data Processing (average height)
The short program shown below was designed to calculate the mean height from five values
entered by an end-user. Study the program carefully until you are satisfied you understand
how it works.

The test data shown below threw up some differences between expected and actual outputs.
Although the program is syntactically correct it contains at least one semantic error (bug).

Input Values (cm)

Expected Output Actual Output
h1 h2 h3 h4 h5
150 160 170 180 190 170.0 cm 694.0 cm
190 172 172 178 187 179.8 cm 746.4 cm
171 175 169 182 178 175.0 cm 730.8 cm

Log your thoughts.

What is your opinion of the above program?
In what way(s) could the program be enhanced?

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Suggested Activities
1. Key in (or copy+paste from GitHub) the full program and make sure it runs without any
syntax errors.

2. Experiment by rearranging lines 6-10 into different orders. Each time you make a
change, run your program to see if they make any difference to the output display.

3. Fix the bug(s)

4. Modify the code so that it can accept decimal values for height as well as whole
numbers. (Make sure to round your result.)

5. Implement some of your suggestions from the bottom of the previous page

6. Rearrange the lines below into a program that does the same thing.
Note, only five of the lines (excluding comments) are needed but two of these will be
needed more than once.

7. Add a line of code to display the result in feet and inches as well as centimetres.
(1𝑐𝑚 = 0.393701 𝑖𝑛𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑠)

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Further Activities
By this stage you are more than likely getting tired of having to enter 5 different values for
height every time you run your program.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could enter the values into a

spreadsheet and every time you run your program it
would read the file and calculate the mean based on
the 5 values contained in the file?
This is exactly what the following program does.

Before reading the detailed explanation of the program on the next page see if you can
complete the comments on lines 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20 and 21.

The file heights.csv was created in a spreadsheet and saved into the same folder as the
Python source program. This is called the runtime folder.

Each of the five lines in the data file contain a numeric value that represents a person’s
height in centimetres.

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Program Explanation
 Line 4 of the program opens a data file called heights.csv in read mode. This tells
Python that the file will be used for reading (as opposed to writing) purposes. The
variable heightFile is the program’s reference to this file. This is called the file pointer
(also referred to as a file handle). Any operations on the file such as reading the file must
use this file handle.

It is useful to think of a file pointer as an imaginary index finger. When a data file is
initially opened in read mode the pointer is positioned at the start of that file.

 Line 6 initialises a variable called totalHeight to zero. This variable will be used to
store the sum of all the height values.

 Line 8 tells Python to read a line from the data file, convert the result to a floating point
number and store the resulting value in a variable called height. (There’s lots going on
here so make sure you understand this line as it is a very common type of pattern in
Python programming.)

Every time the program reads a line from the file, the file pointer is moved to the start of
the next line in the data file. This is a subtle side effect of the readline command.

 Line 9 adds the current value of height to the value stored in the variable
totalHeight (which was initialised to zero on line 6). In this case, the answer will be
the same as the value in height. This answer is then stored in totalHeight.

 This pattern of reading the next line from the data file and adding the height value to the
running total is repeated four times i.e. once for each line in the data file.

 Line 24 computes the average and lines 27 and 28 display the result.

What one question would I still like to ask in relation to this

example?

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BREAKOUT 2.4: Games Programming with pygame (Animation)
In this activity we will use our knowledge of variables to create the illusion of a 50x50 unit
square block moving from a starting position on the top left hand corner of a window towards
(and beyond) the bottom right hand corner of the same window.

Before writing any code it is good practice to first design a solution. Start by analysing the
problem – make sure you understand what is required. It is always helpful to try to visualise
what the final running program will look like.

The three screenshots below depict a red block moving diagonally (downwards and to the
right) towards the bottom right corner.

Before writing any code it is often helpful to ask probing questions such as ….
Have I done something similar before? Can the task be decomposed (broken down)?
What Python commands are there to meet my need? How do these command work?
Do I need variables?
Can I find a solution for a similar problem using the internet? What would I be looking for?

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 59
In this case we will decompose the problem into 2 parts:
a) Display a 50x50 block in the top left hand corner of a pygame window
b) Create the required illusion of movement from top left towards bottom right

The solution to part a) along with the output window is presented in the program listing
below. (You should key in/download the program and make sure it runs without any syntax
errors.)

Program Listing Output Window

Program Explanation
 It should be possible to understand most of the code from the activity at the end of
section 1 (if not you should revisit section 1)
 Line 16 is the key line – this line uses the command pygame.draw.rect to draw the
50x50 rectangle (i.e. a square) at position (0,0) in the display window. The ‘clever’ bit is
recognising that by using (0, 0) as the co-ordinates the block will be positioned at the top
left of the display window as required.
 Line 18 updates the display causing the red square to actually appear in the display
window.

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The solution to part b) of the problem - presented below - is slightly more intricate and
requires a little more in depth knowledge of the ‘game loop’.

The ‘trick’ here is to create the illusion movement by displaying the block in a sequence of
different positions. In order to do this the co-ordinates of the block will be needed.

We introduce two variables x and y to store the co-ordinates of the top left corner of the
block. The variables are initialised to 0 on lines 14 and 15 respectively.

Our illusion is achieved by changing the value of each variable inside the game loop (lines
28 and 29) before redrawing the block and updating the display.

Line 28 increases the x position by 5 – this causes the horizontal movement.

Line 29 increases the y position by 5 – this causes the vertical movement.

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 Experiment! Try making the following changes.

1. Comment out line 33. What happens? What is the purpose of this line of code?

2. Change the fill colour on line 33 from BLACK to RED. Explain what happens.

3. Comment out line 28. What happens? Can you explain why?

4. Change the offset amount from 5 to 10 on line 29. Explain any changes in the way the
program behaves.

Further Activities
1. Adapt your program so that the block moves as follows:
- from the top left corner to the bottom left corner
- from the top left corner to the top right corner
- from a different starting position in one dimension e.g. top right to bottom right
- from a different starting position in two dimensions e.g. bottom left to top right
- from a random starting position to a random ending position
2. Write a program to make a ball (circle) appear to move through the screen.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 62
 Section 3

Strings

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Introduction
In Section 1 we defined a string as any text enclosed inside quotation marks. Strings are
important simply because, along with numbers, they are by far the most common type of
data processed by computer programs and systems.

The value of a string can either be a string literal or any Python expression that results in a
string. Some examples of simple string literals are listed below.

"Please enter your name: ”

"John Doe”
“+353-85-1234567”
“182 C 999”
“@PDSTcs Python CPD for #LCCS teachers”
“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUkjib”

The individual symbols that make up a string are called characters.

Notice from the above examples that characters can be letters, numbers, spaces,
punctuation marks and basically any symbol your keyboard will allow you to enter.

KEY POINT: A string is a sequence of characters enclosed by quotation marks.

Sometimes a string is referred to as an array (or list) of characters.

It is useful to think of the individual characters of a string being stored in consecutive

locations of the computer’s memory. For example, string Hello World could be thought of as
follows:

Internally, computers store unique numeric codes for each character and not the actual
characters themselves.

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When to use a string
It is relatively straightforward to understand what a string is. However, a more necessary skill
lies in the ability to recognise the need to use strings (in computer programs).

The art of computer programming usually involves the representation of some real world
phenomena by using a programming language such as Python. In other words,
programmers use the features of Python to model real world phenomena.

The number of real world situations that can be modelled using computer systems is
endless. Examples include buying, selling, order delivery, flight scheduling, medical systems,
processing of examination results, news, entertainment and even socialising.

At an even finer level of detail, the string datatype is a feature of Python that is suitable for
representing many real world things.

KEY POINT: A string should be used in a computer program to model any real
world data that could be composed of any combination of letters, numbers and
punctuation symbols.

Examples of string data include names, addresses, phone numbers, passwords, email texts,
Facebook posts, SMS text messages, tweets, product codes, descriptions – the list is
endless. In fact, most of the data you see on your mobile phone and on the world wide web
are represented by strings.

Novice programmers should be made aware of the fact that data which intuitively looks
numeric are frequently represented in programs by strings. The reason for this is that these
apparent numbers can often contain non-numeric data such as brackets, dashes or letters.
Common examples include phone ‘numbers’, vehicle registration ‘numbers’ and Personal
Public Service Numbers (PPSN).

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String Operations
We already know we can display a string using the print command. But what are the other
operations that can be carried out on strings?

By far the most important strings operations are indexing and slicing. Indexing is a
programming technique used to access individual characters of a string. Slicing is a variation
on this used to access multiple continuous characters from a string (known as a sub-string or
a slice).

Other operations that can be carried out on strings are addition, multiplication, formatting
and comparisons. Strings also support set operations such as in and not in. These set
operations along with comparisons will be discussed in the section on programming logic.

Python also comes with a number of built in commands that can be used on strings as well
as a comprehensive set of commands (known as string methods) specifically designed for
working with strings.

String Indexing
In order to understand string indexing (and slicing) it is first necessary to understand the
concept of an index. Consider the string s initialised in the line of code shown

Internally, the computer represents the string s as a sequence of characters stored at

contiguous memory locations. Each individual character is stored in its own separate
memory location.

The individual characters in every Python string have a position. This position is relative to
the first character in the string and is known as an index. Because the index is an offset from
the first character, the index of the first character itself, in every Python, string is zero.
Indices are said to be zero-based.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 66
The diagram below depicts the index position of every character in the string s.

As can be seen the first character i.e. ‘H’ has an index of zero. This is important. The first
character in a string always occurs at index position zero (this is often called the zeroth
position), the second character at index position 1, the third character at index position 2 and
so on. The string Hello World contains 11 characters and each character has a unique index
ranging from 0 to 10.

In general, when there are 𝑛 characters in a string the last character always occurs at index
position 𝑛 − 1. Therefore, if there are 5 characters in a string the last character occurs at
index position 4.

Each individual character of a string can be accessed by enclosing the character’s index
inside square brackets The square brackets must appear directly after the name of the
string. For example, the first element of the above string can be accessed using s[0]. So,

s[0]  "H"
s[1]  "e"
s[2]  "l"
s[3]  "l"
s[4]  "o"
s[5]  " "
s[6]  "W"
s[7]  "o"
s[8]  "r"
s[9]  "l"
s[10]  "d"

It is worth pointing out that Python, unlike many other programming languages does not
support the concept of a character datatype. All of the single characters returned in the
above example are actually strings i.e. single character strings of length 1.

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Negative Indices
Python permits the use of negative numbers as indices.

The diagram to the right depicts the positive and

negative indices of the string Hello.

As can be seen the last (rightmost) character of the

string can be accessed using index −1. Working from
right to left the index of each character is one less than
its predecessor.

Experiment!
A pangram is a sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet at least once.
Study the program below and see if you can predict what it does? Record your
prediction on the right hand side.
Key in (or copy+paste from GitHub) the program and make some changes?
What happens?
Prediction

What one question (if any) would I still like to ask in relation to this
example?

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 68
Common Pitfalls
It is worth pointing out a couple of very common pitfalls relating to strings and index numbers

The first thing to note is that strings are immutable. This means that once a string has been
initialised it cannot be changed. For this reason, it is not permitted to use the index operator
([]) on the left hand side of an assignment statement.

For example, the string Cavan could not be changed to Navan as follows.

This code results in a syntax error shown below:

To ‘change’ the value of town to Navan the program needs to make a new assignment
town="Navan" but be warned that the reference to the original string Cavan is now lost.

Secondly, if a program attempted to access a character in a string using an index that is too
big (i.e. beyond the last character) for that string, Python returns a runtime error telling you
that the index is out of range. For example, running the following code snippet would result
in a runtime error being displayed because the index 5 is beyond the range of the string.

Out of range errors are also known as out of bounds errors. These type of errors can be a
source of great frustration even for more experienced programmers.

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String Slicing
Thus far we have used indexing to access individual characters from a string. The technique
of indexing can also be used to extract a sub-string from a string. This is known as slicing.
The part of the string that is extracted is known as the slice (i.e. sub-string).

Slicing is useful when we want to extract a specific piece of information out of a longer piece
of information. For example, we may want to extract a share price from a web page
displaying stocks.

In order to extract a slice from a string we need to know the indices of the desired slice’s
start and end positions. The slice is taken by specifying these values inside the square
brackets. The values are separated by a full colon.

The technique of slicing is demonstrated by the following short program.

The colon delimits the start and end positions of the slice we are interested in extracting. The
resulting slice runs from the starting index up to, but not including the end. If the start is
missing it is taken to be zero i.e. the first character of the string. If end is missing it is taken
as the index of the last character in the string.

What do you think the statement print(pangram[:]) would

display?

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String Addition and Multiplication
Strings, just like numbers can be added and multiplied.

The operation of adding one string to another is commonly referred to as string

concatenation. We say one string is concatenated to another string to form a new (and
longer) string. The plus operator, ‘+’ is used to concatenate two strings.

The programs below illustrate how the plus operator is used to concatenate strings.

PROGRAM 1

PROGRAM 2

PROGRAM 3

Log your thoughts.

Each of the above programs contain a deliberate subtle error in
their outputs. Can you suggest how the output could be enhanced?

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Building up a string (string construction)
String concatenation is a useful technique for building up a string made up of separate
strings that come from different sources. Let’s say we wanted to construct an output string
based on the pangram string we used earlier.

This time however we want to ask the user to enter the colour of the fox and the name of the
animal to jump over. The output string will be constructed based on the values entered by
the user. Example outputs could be:

One solution is as shown here.

Observe how the outStr is built up bit

by bit as the program progresses.

Can you see any similarities between

this and the technique for keeping
running totals described earlier?

String multiplication
Multiplication of strings in Python is not very common. When a string is multiplied by some
integer 𝑛, a new string is produced. This new string is the original string repeated 𝑛 times.

The technique of string multiplication is exemplified by the program shown below. The output
generated by the code is displayed to the right.

HelloHelloHello
eee
elelel

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 Programming Exercise 3.1
The string variable alNum is initialised as shown here.

1. Match each index operation on alNum (numbered 1-9 below) to the correct value on
the right hand side (denoted by letters A-I)

2. Explain what is wrong with each of the following code snippets

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Strings Formatting
Sometimes it is useful to be able to display a string that is made up of several pieces of data
without having to use the string construction techniques just described.

Formatting string expressions enable us to display more than one piece of data in a single
print statement. Consider the following statement:

The first string after the opening brackets on each line is called the format string. This is the
string that Python displays once it has it formatted. In this example the format string is Hello
%s

The %s is a placeholder for Python to insert a string value into the format string. %s is an
example of a Python formatting type code (aka format specifier).

The % immediately after the format string tells Python that what follows is a string formatting
expression. This expression contains the actual value(s) for Python to substitute into the
format string.

In the above statement, Python replaces %s the string literal, World, and the resulting
formatted string Hello World is displayed.

Some common string formatting codes are listed below

 %s is used to format text (strings)
 %d is used to format integers
 %f is used to format floating point (decimal) numbers
 %.2f is used to format floating point numbers to 2 decimal places (rounded)

KEY POINT: The print command replaces each format code, in strict
sequence, with a value of the appropriate datatype from the formatting
expression.
If the format string contains more than one code, then the corresponding values
in the expression must be separated by commas and enclosed by brackets.

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 The four statements below each generate the same output.
What output is displayed?

The output generated by the following code is displayed to the right.

Experiment!
See if you can figure out what the following code does.

Finally, it is worth noting that string formatting expressions can, and frequently do, contain
variables and/or other Python expressions. This is exemplified in these two snippets.

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Built in string commands
So, let’s say we have a string s declared and initialised as follows:

The table below outlines the use of three different built-in string commands – len, min and
max - and the output they produce when applied to s.
Command Description Output
Returns the length of the string, s
len(s) 44
This is the number of characters in the string.

Returns the minimum item in s.

min(s) "!"
(See ord on the next page.)

Returns the maximum item in s.

max(s) "z"
(See ord on the next page.)

Another built in command that relates to strings is str. The str command is used to
convert any object into string. This means a program can dynamically change the type of
any object to a string type.

One practical use of str is to convert numbers to strings when we want to display them as
part of an output message. Observe how runningTotal is converted to a string in the last
line of the following program.

KEY POINT: Python is dynamically typed. This means that when a program is
running, numeric data can be converted to strings and vice versa.

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Coding Systems (ord and chr)
Two other built in Python commands that relate to strings are ord and chr

Programmers should be aware that all data is represented internally by computers using a
coding system. A coding system is one which uses combinations of binary digits to represent
data values uniquely. ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) and
Unicode are the names of two very widely used coding systems. An illustration of the full
ASCII character set is shown below.

The two built-in functions – ord and chr - are used to convert back and forth between
characters and ASCII.

ord(c) Returns the ASCII representation (or Unicode code point) of the character c.
chr(i) This is the inverse of ord. The function returns a single character as a string
whose ASCII representation (or Unicode code point) is the integer i.

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The programs below illustrate the use of ord.
Line 1 outputs 65. This is the ASCII
representation for the character ‘A’

Line 2 outputs 90. The ASCII

representation for the character ‘A’ is 65
and 65+25 is 90.

Use the ASCII table shown on the previous page to predict

the outputs of lines 3, 4 and 5 of the above program.

This next piece of code illustrates the use of chr.

Line 1 outputs character ‘A’
Line 2 outputs character ‘Z’
Line 3 outputs character ‘a’
Line 4 outputs character ‘1’

Experiment!
Try running the following two pieces of code and see if you can
explain what is going on.

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 Programming Exercise 3.2
A Caesar cipher is a way of encoding strings by shifting each letter by a fixed number of
positions (called a key) in the alphabet. For example, if the key value is 1, the string ’LCCS’.
would be encoded as ‘MDDT’. Each letter of LCCS is moved on by one.

The short program below prompts a user to enter a single character and then it calculated
and displays the character with the next ordinal number e.g. if the user enters the letter A,
the program will display B.

Run the program and once you understand what it does, change it so that it "encodes" a 6
letter string using a key value of 1 e.g. "Python" becomes "Qzuipo".

In order to complete this task, you will need to understand:

 Variables and assignments
 Strings (indexing and concatenation)
 Data representation (ASCII/Unicode)
 How to use the ord, chr and print built-in functions

Log your thoughts.

Suggest ways by which this task could be altered to make it either
more challenging or less challenging to complete?

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String Methods
String methods are special commands that can be used to manipulate and perform
common/useful operations on string values.

The official Python documentation https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#string-

methods lists and describes over 40 built in string methods. The program below
demonstrates six of these – capitalize, upper, isupper, islower, count and find.

When the above program is run it generates the following output.

Each of the nine lines of output correspond, in sequence, to the result of the string methods
used inside each of the nine print statements.

The program, along with the output it generates should be studied carefully again after
reading the method descriptions on the next page.

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As can be seen, the string methods operate using the same dot notation as we used for
turtle and pygame objects earlier. For any string variable s, we can use a string method
by typing s, followed by a dot, followed by the method’s name. This is denoted as follows:

<string-variable-name>.<method-name>

Method Name Description

s.capitalize() Returns a new string with the first letter of s in capital letters

s.upper() Returns a new string with all the letters of s in upper case

Returns the value True if all the letters in s are in upper case. If
all the letters are not in upper case the method returns False.
s.isupper()
True and False are both Python keywords will be explained in
the next section on programming logic.

Returns the value True if all the letters in s are in lower case. If
all the letters are not in lower case the method returns False.
s.islower()
True and False are both Python keywords will be explained in
the next section on programming logic.

This methods counts the number of times any string e.g. o

s.count("o")
occurs in the string s and returns the answer.

This method looks for a string e.g. Fox in the string s and if it
s.find("Fox") finds it returns the index position of the F. If the search sting is
not found the method returns -1.

Replaces all occurrences of t in s with u.

s.replace(t, u) s, t and u are all strings.
s remains unchanged if it does not contain t.

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 Programming Exercise 3.3

The code below initialises four string variables

Match each print statement (numbered 1-14 below) to the corresponding

output (denoted by letters A-N)

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 82
Additional Notes (Sequences)
Strings like almost everything else in Python are examples of objects. The string type is a
core data type that is built into the language. Some other examples of built in types include
numbers, lists, tuples, dictionaries and files. The official documentation on all Python’s types
can be viewed online at https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html and is well worth a
visit.

More specifically Python classifies strings as part of a more fundamental kind of object
known as a sequence. A sequence is defined as an ordered collection of objects

Python supports three basic sequence types (list, tuple and range), a text sequence
type (str) and a number of binary sequence types use to work with binary data.

All sequence types share a common set of operations, called sequence operations. The
table below, which is taken directly from the official Python documentation, lists these
common sequence operations in ascending order of precedence.

Note that concatenation, multiplication, indexing, and slicing – all described in this section in
the context of strings – are all common sequence operations and, therefore, are equally
applicable to all the other sequence types.

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Sequences can either be mutable, meaning that their values can be changed once they
have been created, or immutable, meaning that their values cannot be changed after
creation.

Python considers strings to be as ‘elemental’ as numbers and accordingly implements them

as immutable sequences. Therefore, once a variable has been initialised with a string value,
that value can never be overwritten. A program may appear to change a string by assigning
the same variable to a new or different string. In practice when this happens, Python creates
a new string and the original string remains in memory without a reference.

Sequences are also distinguished from one another by their own specific set of operations
that are not available to other types. For example, the string methods described earlier in
this section are specific to string sequences and cannot be used on other sequence types.

Finally, it is worth noting that unlike many other high level programming languages, Python
does not provide any built-in support for the character datatype. In Python, a single character
is simply treated as a string of length one.

KEY POINT: Strings are immutable.

They are implemented as sequences of one character strings.

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 BREAKOUT ACTIVITIES

BREAKOUT 3.1: School Survey Web Page

Among the many applications of Python strings are file processing and HTML files
generation. Consider the following scenario.

Your school loves to hear feedback from teachers and students on a wide variety of topics
and issues – so much so, that the school website even has a dedicated page for hosting
weekly surveys. This week’s survey, shown below, relates to the menu in the school
canteen.

The format of the web page is the same for every survey. Surveys differ from each other
only in the actual question being asked, and the text of possible answers which always
appear in two buttons displayed side-by-side on the page. Participants are always asked to
enter their first name and last name.

The questions and answer options for the next three surveys approved by the school board
are shown below.

1. Destination for School Tour next year? Rome Barcelona

2. Exam year students should be allowed to take part in all
Agree Disagree
extra-curricular activities?
3. Computational Thinking should be taught as part of every
Always Sometimes
subject

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The problem is that every week the school ‘techie’, Ms E. Fish, has to edit the HTML file with
next week’s survey question and answers, and upload it to the web server to make it live on
the school web site.

The ‘techie’, who is also the school’s Computer Science teacher understands HTML, but
with the new term fast approaching is very busy developing content for the learning
outcomes in the new LCCS specification as well as coming up with ideas for teaching the
course through the lens of the four Applied Learning Tasks.

Even though the HTML code behind the survey page – shown below - is fairly
straightforward, she needs come up with an efficient solution so that her colleague, Mr.
Chips (the maths teacher who does not possess any knowledge of HTML), can upload the
new survey.

survey.html

The solution Ms. E. Fish comes up with is as follows:

1. She will create a HTML survey template file with placeholders for the question and
answer text to be used in the survey. The name of this file will be
survey_template.html.
2. She will create a normal text file to store the question and answer text for the next
survey. The name of this file will be survey.txt.

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3. She will write a Python program that generates a HTML for the next survey using two
files survey_template.html and survey.txt. The name of the generated file will
be survey.html.

All Mr. Chips will have to do every week is edit the text file and run the program. No need
to worry about HTML - easy!

Ms. E. Fish was delighted that her proof of concept worked and so commenced the job of
implementing her solution. She created the two files - survey_template.html and
survey.txt – as per design. These are shown below. Notice the three placeholders for the
text on lines 6, 14 and 15 in the survey_template.html

survey_template.html

survey.txt

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However, soon after she started writing the Python program to generate the weekly survey,
Ms. E. Fish realised that she needed to prioritise lesson planning for the fast approaching
LCCS.

With the program, shown below, at unit test stage, unless someone steps in, the project is
looking like it might have to be shelved and the destination for next year’s school tour is still
undecided.

The desired output is shown below.

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Suggested Activities

1. Restate the problem in your own words.

2. Complete the program by adding the necessary code inside the

red rectangles to get it displaying the desired output. You will
need to make sure the two files - survey_template.html and
survey.txt – are in the runtime directory.

3. Outline how you might test your system.

4. Describe in detail the steps you would have to take in order to

introduce a third answer button into the survey

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BREAKOUT 3.2: RSS Feed Analysis
Really Simple Syndication (RSS, aka Rich Site Summary) is a technology that allows an
end-user to have information delivered automatically from selected website(s) to a device.
The information is referred to as a feed. Users can subscribe to receive RSS feeds from
specific sites, and in this way, keep up-to-date with the information they are interested in.

Typically, these sites contain information relating to business, jobs, blogs, news,
entertainment etc. Once a user has subscribed, feeds containing any new information on
these sites are automatically ‘sent’ to that user who can then view them using a RSS reader
(typically a web browser).

Use your favourite browser to locate and record the names

and URLs of some RSS sites that interest you.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

In this session we will modify and write code that analyses data from a live RSS feed of your
choice.

A working program that connects to a URL and delivers a live RSS from that URL to a
variable called feed is provided as a starting point. The program listing is shown on the next
page.

Notice that a large section of the code in enclosed in a black box. The black box is used to
indicate code that is needed for the program to run, but not necessary to understand. In this
example, the code inside the black box tells Python to read a RSS feed from the URL
specified as a string on line number 24.

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Program to read a RSS feed
The listing below pulls live headline news publically available from Apple’s RSS feed. The
data is stored in the string variable, feed.

Line 24 is an assignment statement. The right hand side tells Python to used code (inside
the black box) to read the contents of a RSS feed. The full URL of the site from which to
read the feed is hard-coded as a string in this line. The feed itself is returned as a string and
stored in the variable feed.

Line 26 displays the contents of the feed on the output console.

Line 28 displays the number of lines in feed. It does this by using the count command
(method) to count the number of newline characters in feed. (A standard technique used to
count the number of lines in a piece of text is to count the number of occurrences of the
newline character, ‘\n’.)

We are now ready to make changes to the code.

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Suggested Activities
1. Download (from GitHub) or key in the full program and make sure it runs properly.

2. The feed URL is hard-coded into the program (line 24). This means that a programmer
must change the code every time a different feed needs to be read.
Modify the program so that it reads the URL from the first line of a text/data file.

Hint #1: You will need to create a file first (e.g. feeds.txt), and save it in your runtime
directory. The file might look something like this:

Hint #2: A solution can be obtained by using four of following lines (in a different order).

3. Extend the code so that it displays the entire feed a) capitalised, b) in upper case and c)
in lower case.

4. Write a line of code that replaces every occurrence of a specific word in the feed with
another word of your choosing e.g. replace the word ‘Apple’ with the word ‘Microsoft’.
Display the new string.

5. Write a code snippet to count and add the number of vowels in the feed. (Later we will
use the plotly library to display these data on a bar chart.)

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6. Add the following code snippet to the end of your program and run it.

What happened when you added the above code?

What do these two lines do?
Can you condense these two lines into one line that does the same
thing?

7. Write code to replace the first two occurrence of a specific word/phrase in the feed with
another word/phrase of your choosing. (You will need to identify some word/phrase that
occurs at least twice yourself.) The output should display the entire feed with the new
word/phrase in place of the original two.

Hint: You will need to use the techniques of indexing/slicing and concatenation to
construct the output string.

8. Same as previous activity except, instead of replacing the two words, your program
should apply the Caesar cipher algorithm implemented earlier in this section.

9. Browse to the official Python site documentation on string methods (see link below) and
identify some method(s) that you have not already used. Now, use the feed from this
activity to test drive your new string method.
https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#text-sequence-type-str

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10. Read the listing below and predict what it will do.
Now key it in and run it. Was your prediction correct?

Experiment!
What happens if you change the URL on line 5?

Discuss in groups ways an activity (or sequence of activities)

might be developed around the above code. (You may find it
useful to reflect on the types of activities carried out in this
breakout session on RSS feeds.)

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 Section 4

Lists

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Introduction
A list is a collection of variables. The list type is commonly referred to as an array in other
programming languages but as we shall see there are some subtle differences between lists
and traditional arrays.

Lists are useful because they provide us with a means of grouping several variables into a
single variable. The value of each variable is known as a list element and these can be
accessed by using the same indexing/slicing techniques as was described in the previous
section on strings.

Just think about it. Thus far we have been using variables to store single values. This has
been the case regardless of the variable’s datatype i.e. whether it is a string or numeric, only
one value at a time can be stored in it.

The main purpose of lists it to provide a mechanism for dealing with multiple values using a
single variable.

Strings are a special type of list where the individual elements are the individual characters
that make up the string. One key difference between lists and strings, however, is that lists
are mutable, whereas strings are not.

KEY POINT: A list is a Python programming construct useful for modelling any
real world data that can be grouped together under a common name.

Examples of lists include teacher names, schools, subjects, teams, lists of friends, a book
list, a list of tweets, play lists (songs), shopping lists, a list of instructions, lists of countries,
lists of capital cities, days of the week, months of the year, holiday dates, lists of numbers
(e.g. lottery, ages, salaries, sales figures, heights etc.). The list of lists is endless!

Consider for example, scenarios where we needed to keep track of the number of times a
particular event occurred. Let’s say there are multiple possible outcomes and we need to
maintain a count for each one individually. For some reason we might be asked to write a
traffic survey program that counts the numbers of pedestrians, bicycles, cars, vans, HGVs
etc. passing a particular point at a particular time of the day. Without lists we would need to
maintain each count in a separate variable.

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Creating Lists
The simplest kind of list is an empty list i.e. one that contains no elements. Empty lists are
created by using a pair of square brackets as illustrated in the code below.

The code shown here to the right creates five

different empty lists. The square brackets on the
right hand side of each assignment tell Python
that the datatype of the variable named on the left
hand side is a list.

Even though these lists do not contain any data,

their construction means that the program can
add data to them at a later stage.

Remember lists are mutable. This means that values can be added, deleted or simply
changed after the list has been created. The following code snippet illustrates how to
initialise lists with data.

Note the use of square brackets on the right hand side and the use of commas to separate
the individual list elements. The number of elements in the lists are 4, 4, 3, 5, 6 and 5
respectively.

Notice also that boysNames, girlsNames, favouriteSongs and fruits are all lists of
strings; vehicleCount is a list of numbers, and accountDetails is a list of values that
have a mixture of different underlying datatypes.

KEY POINT: A Python list can be made up of elements having different datatypes.

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One of the key differences between lists and traditional arrays used in other programming
languages is that a Python lists can be made up of data having a mixture of different
datatypes, whereas the elements of an array must all be of the same data type.

It is useful to form a mental image of how lists are represented internally by the computer.
Lists are frequently depicted in either a horizontal or vertical fashion as shown here.

A horizontal memory representation for the list boysNames would look like this.

A vertical memory representation for the list fruits would look as follows.

The key point is that the elements of the list should be envisaged in neighbouring memory
locations (just like the individual characters of a string as described in the previous section).

List five things you have learned about lists so far in this section.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

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Common List Operations
Because lists and strings are both sequences, all of the common basic operations work in
the same way for lists as they do for string. Specifically, lists can be added to one another
(concatenation), multiplied together, indexed and sliced.

The commands min, max, and len also work for lists in the same way as they do for strings
returning the minimum value, the maximum value and the number of elements (i.e. the
length) in the list respectively.

Concatenation
Lists can also be constructed by concatenating two existing lists together. For example, we
could join boysNames and girlsNames together using the concatenation operator (+) to
form a new list called names as follows.

Notice that square brackets

are not used on line 3.

When a list is used without square brackets like this, Python takes it that every element in
the list is to be used.

The print command on line 4 displays the entire contents of the list. The output generated
by the above code is shown here.

The example below generates the exact same output, demonstrates that concatenation does
not always result in a new list being created.

The list, boysNames is

extended to include the list of
girls’ names.

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Some Insights
The previous example provides us with an opportunity to gain some deeper insights into the
Python programming language.

Observe, that by the end of the example, the list variable boysNames will contain the names
of four girls (at least we think they are girls) – Sarah, Alex, Pat and Mary.

Just because we (humans) know that Mary and Sarah are definitely girls’ names, it does not
mean that Python knows this too. In fact, unlike humans, Python does not know the
difference between a girl’s name and a boy’s name. (This is because the language was not
designed to include any built in features to make such a distinction.). To Python, names are
all just strings.

The fact that the previous program instructs Python to assign the girls’ names to a variable
that looks like it was named by the programmer to store the boys’ names could mean one of
two things. Either
a) boysNames was a poor choice of a variable name made by the programmer or,
b) the assignment was a mistake, again, made by the programmer

In both cases the programmer is the person responsible.

KEY POINT: Python has no understanding of natural language syntax and

therefore has no way of inferring the intention of the programmer from the code.

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List Indexing
Recall from the section on strings, that indexing is a technique used to access individual
elements of a list. List indexing works just like string indexing.

A list element is accessed by using an index which is a zero-based positional value for that
element. As was the case with strings, the index must be an integer (or an expression that
evaluates to an integer), and, must be enclosed inside square brackets.

The graphic below depicts how index numbers can be included as part of the ‘mental image’
we formed for lists earlier.

Every list element is uniquely referenced by the list name and an index number.

Example program (fruit machine v1)

One of the reasons that computer programming is sometimes referred to as an art is
because programmers can express creativity and imagination through the medium of their
code.

The next example program demonstrates how to combine the use of random numbers and
lists to simulate the operation of a fruit machine.

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Read the program carefully and see if you can figure out how it works.

 Line 5 initialises a list of fruits.

 Lines 8, 9, and 10 each generate a random number between zero and four inclusive
 Lines 13, 14, and 15 each display an element from the list using the random numbers as
the index.

Look up the online documentation for the Python random library.

What does the choice command do?
How might choice be used in the above program?

One final point worth noting is that when a list element is accessed, the datatype of the
resulting object is the same as the datatype of the list element.

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Changing the value of list elements
Lists are mutable objects. This means that the elements of a list can be changed (as well as
accessed). Recall that this is not possible with strings because they are immutable.

It is therefore ‘legal’ to apply the index operator to a list variable on the left hand side of an
assignment statement. The following short program demonstrates this.

 Line 1 initialises a list of fruits and line 2 displays the contents of the list
 Lines 4-9, each make separate changes to the individual elements in the list that are
‘housed’ at the given index
 Line 11 displays the list again

When it is run the program displays the output shown below. Can you figure it out?

Log any thoughts you have in relation to Python lists.

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Index ‘Out of Range’ Errors
At runtime, Python always checks that index numbers lie within bounds for the object they
are being used to access.

A list index will be out of bounds if it lies beyond the range of the list. If Python attempts to
access a list element using an index that is out of bounds, it returns an out of range index
error and the program will crash i.e. stop functioning.

The whole idea of testing is to safeguard against system crashes happening in live
(production) code.

Run the code and you will see that it crashes on line 3, and lines 6 and 7 never get
executed. Programmers spend much of their time correcting their own syntax errors.

Negative indices can be used on lists in just the same way as they could be used on strings.
The last element of a Python list has an index of −1. Working backwards, the index of each
element is one less than its predecessor. Therefore, the valid indices for a list made up of
four elements would be −4 to 3 inclusive. This is illustrated below.

KEY POINT: In general, the index numbers of any sequence of length of 𝑛 must
lie within the range of −𝑛 and 𝑛 − 1. So, −𝑛 ≤ 𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑥 ≤ 𝑛 − 1

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List Slicing
Lists can be quite long and sometimes we might just be interested in processing a portion of
the data they contain. We can extract sub-lists from lists using the exact same technique that
we used to extract substrings from strings earlier i.e. slicing.

A slice is a list of consecutive elements taken from another (larger) list.

Slices are created using the square brackets index operator. As was the case with strings,
the colon delimits the start and end positions of the slice we are interested in extracting.
The technique of slicing is demonstrated in the program below.

Can you figure out how the program generates the output shown
inside the comments?
How could we ‘slice out’ the fruits that grow in Ireland?

The slice is taken from the start position up to, but not including, the last position. For
example, the slice created by fruits[2:5} starts at position 2 and continues up to, but not
including, position 5 i.e. from position 2 to 4 inclusive.

If the first position is not specified it is taken to be zero, and if the last position is not
specified it is taken to be the length of the list.

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It is worth emphasising the point that a slice is in fact a new list.

For example, the following code results in the new list being stored in the list variable
exoticFruits. The slice is from element 2 to 4 inclusive.

When this program is run the contents of exoticFruits are displayed i.e.
['orange', 'banana', 'kiwi']

Finally, it is also worth noting that Python does not display a syntax error when the end
position specified in the slice exceeds the number of elements in the list. In such situations
Python just slices up to the last element of the list. Therefore, the result of the following code
will be the exact same as the code shown above.

KEY POINT: In general, the expression, aList[startPos:endPos]

creates a new list or slice from the list identified by aList.
 The resulting slice starts from index position startPos in aList
 The resulting slice runs up to index position endPos-1 in aList
 If startPos is missing it is taken to be zero
 If endPos is missing it is taken to be len(aList)-1

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 Time to experiment!
Let’s say we have the following initialisation.

Predict the output that would be displayed by each of the print statements
in the program snippet below. Record your predictions in the left column.

Prediction Actual

Now key in (or copy+paste from GitHub) the program and run it.
Record the actual output in the right column.

What value do you think the following expression would generate? Try it!

How does this answer shape your thinking in terms of the relationship
between strings and lists?

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 Can you find and suggest fixes for the two (not three) syntax
errors contained in the code below?

Syntax Error 1:

Syntax Error 2:

How does this extend your thinking in relation to range errors and slicing ?

Explain the steps you would need to take in order to extend the program’s
functionality to generate and display a random card? (e.g. Ace of Spaces)

What additional issues would you have to consider if the program was
required to deal a random hand of five cards?

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List Methods
As data structures go, lists are very flexible. Apart from the basic common operations that
can be carried out on all sequences (e.g. concatenation, indexing, slicing), list objects also
support a variety of additional type-specific commands (methods).

The table below introduces some of these, but a more complete reference can be found by
browsing to the official Python page: https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#mutable-
sequence-types

Method Name Description

aList.append(item) Appends the item to the list named aList

Returns an integer count of how many times the

aList.count(item)
element item occurs in aList
Appends the list contained in anotherList to
aList.extend(anotherList)
aList
Returns the index of the first occurrence of item in
aList.index(item) aList. A ValueError exception is raised if item is
not found.
aList.insert(index, item) Inserts item into aList at offset index

aList.pop() Removes and returns the last element from aList

aList.remove(item) Removes item from the list
aList.reverse() Reverses the order of all the items of aList

Sorts objects of aList in place i.e. without creating a

aList.sort() new list. A new sorted list can be created using the
sorted built in command

The del keyword can also be applied to remove individual elements or entire slices from a
lists. del is used in conjunction with the square bracket index operator as follows.

del aList[i] Removes element at position i from aList

Removes all elements from position i up to, but not including,
del aList[i:j]
position j in aList. (Same as aList[i:j] = [])
del aList[:] Removes (clears) all the elements from aList

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List Methods - Example 1
The following program demonstrates the use of several of these type-specific commands. The
generated output is shown as a comment at the end of each print statement. You should read
through the code and try to understand the list methods used.

Notice that the same dot notation as was described for string methods is also used for lists.
This means in order to use a list method, the programmer must type the name of the list
variable followed by a dot, followed by the method’s name, i.e.

<list-variable-name>.<method-name>
List Methods - Example 2
Try the following.

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Two More Strings Methods (split and splitlines)
Another way to create lists is by using either of the string methods – split or splitlines.

These two methods (commands) are very similar to one another in the sense that they both
break a string into separate ‘tokens’. Both methods create a new list with each token
becoming a separate list element.

Take for example the following code.

 The first line initialises the variable chomskyStr

[Aside: Colourless green ideas sleep furiously is a sentence composed by Noam
Chomsky, (American linguist, philosopher and cognitive scientist), as an example of a
sentence that is grammatically correct, but semantically nonsensical.]
 Line 2 creates a new list called aList. The string is tokenised and each word becomes
a separate list element as shown.by the output:

The main difference between split and splitlines is exemplified by the program below.
(Notice the use of triple quotes to create the block string which spans multiple lines.)

The string comes from a poem

Green Eggs and Ham written
by Dr Seuss, American author,
political cartoonist and poet

The program creates a new list, bList - each line is a separate element as shown.

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Example Program (fruit machine v2)
The program below simulates a fruit machine. The sample outputs shown here should give a
good idea of what the program does.

Fruit machine simulator program

The program works by reading the contents of a file called

fruits.txt (shown here to the right) into a string called
fileContents. The string is then split into individual tokens
each of which are stored as separate elements of a list called
fruits.

Finally, the choice command from the random library is used

three times. Each time it picks a random element from the fruits
list and displays it.

The purpose of the program is to re-inforce some of the concepts and techniques covered in
this section and also to prepare for the following breakout session.

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 BREAKOUT ACTIVITIES

BREAKOUT 4.1: Random Sentence Generator2

For this exercise you are required to write program that generates a random sentence.

The program will make use of four different lists of strings called articles, nouns, verbs
and prepositions. The syntax rule for a valid sentence is that it must have the following
structure:

article noun verb article noun preposition verb

A sample list of words for each of the four lists is given:

articles “the”, “a”, “one”, “some”, “any”

nouns “teacher”, “student”, “principal”, “library”, “school”
verbs “taught”, “learned”, “read”, “walked”, “ran”
prepositions “to”, “from”, “over”, “under”, “on”

Valid sentences must be syntactically correct but may not make any sense. For example,
- the teacher taught a student to read makes sense while,
- some school walked under a principal is semantically nonsensical!

Hints:
1. The solution will need to create a list to store the words of the sentence e.g. wordlist
Initially this list will be empty.
2. The words will need to be selected at random from each list. The following line of code
may be adapted to generate a random word.

3. As words are randomly selected they can be appended to wordlist

4. Once the seven words have been generated they can be displayed in a sentence.

2
Adapted from a problem in Java: how to program, P.J. Deitel, H.M. Deitel, 9th ed., Prentice Hall, 2012

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 Reflection.
What were your main thoughts as you engaged with this problem?
How might this exercise be adapted/extended for use in your own
LCCS classroom?

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BREAKOUT 4.2: Data Processing (heights)
At the end of Section 2 we completed a breakout activity based on processing a number of
height values input by the user. We start this activity by presenting a solution to the activity.

The contents of the heights.txt file are shown here to the right. These can be edited and a
new set of values supplied to the program at runtime.

We now add the following program into the mix. This three-liner uses the mean command
from the statistics library to calculate the arithmetic mean of the numbers contained in
the list heightList. If we wanted to calculate the mean of a different set of heights the
programmer would need to change the values in this list.

It is worth browsing to https://docs.python.org/3/library/statistics.html to take a look at the

official Python documentation on the statistics library.

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Suggested Activities

1. Compare and contrast the two programs

2. Devise a test plan (similar to that shown in the corresponding activity at the end of
Section 2) for the programs. Execute the test plan.

3. Modify the first program so that it uses the statistics package to calculate the mean.
(The variable totalHeight should not appear in the final program.). Repeat the test
plan to make sure your solution works.

4. Continue to modify this program with the following changes:

- instead of there being five separate uses of the readline command, the entire file
should be read into a string by single read command.
- use the split command to create a list of height values from the resulting string
You may wish to look back at the fruit machine v2 example (page 112) for some
technical guidance to complete this activity.

The program should be able to deal with a variable number of heights and as well as
decimal values.

5. Display the following information in meaningful messages (preferably using string

formatting to display any variable data):
- The maximum height
- The minimum height
- The range and interquartile range
- The heights in ascending/descending order

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 In what ways do you think this activity might be used to support the
development of metacognitive skills?

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BREAKOUT 4.3: Turtle Directions
The purpose of this activity is to build upon the knowledge we already have about turtle
graphics and apply the concepts from this section to them.

The turtle graphic program shown below contains two lists – angles and distances. Between
them, the lists contain ‘encoded’ data that direct a turtle from point A to point B. The program
listing is as follows:

When the program is run it displays the path show.

Experiment by changing the values of the angles and distances to
see what journeys you can come up with.
(Remember that the turtle starts in the centre of the screen facing
right (east). The arrowhead indicates the end of the path.)

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 Design a set of appropriate activities that adapt/extend this
activity so that it has the potential to elicit your choice of
concepts and/or techniques covered so far.

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 Section 5

Programming Logic

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Introduction
Thus far, we have been dealing with sequential programs i.e. programs which begin their
execution at the first line and execute each line in order until the last line is reached.

In addition to sequence, Python supports two other control structures known as selection
and iteration. The purpose of this section is to explain the syntax and semantics of selection
and iteration, and explore some common programming techniques used to apply them in
real-world contexts.

Selection
Selection structures are commonly referred to as decisions. These structures provide
programmers with a branching mechanism whereby, certain blocks of code may be either
executed or skipped at runtime. The decision of which block of code to select for execution
depends on the result of a condition also known as a Boolean expression.

The main Python keywords used to support decision structures are if, else and elif.

Iteration
Iteration structures are commonly referred to as loops. Loops are used to cause the same
block of code to be executed multiple times. At runtime, the code inside a loop (the loop
body) is executed repeatedly as long as some condition (the loop guard) is met. The loop
guard is also a Boolean expression.

The main Python keywords used to support iteration structures are for, and while.
Three other (less important) keywords that relate to loops are break, continue and pass.

KEY POINT: Selection and iteration are two programming techniques whose
runtime operations are based on the outcome of Boolean expressions.

Boolean Expressions
A Boolean expression is any expression that evaluates to either True or False.

Boolean expressions form the basis of all programming logic.

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 Hangman!
Hangman is a well-known guessing game usually played by two people using pencil and
paper. One player thinks of a word and the other tries to guess it by suggesting letters within
a certain number of guesses.

The illustration3 below depicts the main steps of the

game and the graphic4 to the right illustrates a sample
run of the game, where the player is trying to guess the
word hangman.

3
http://calab.hanyang.ac.kr/courses/ISD_taesoo/05_Hangman.pdf
4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangman_(game)

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 Study the illustration on the previous page carefully and identify
the areas where sequence, selection and iteration could be used
in a programming solution for the game.

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Boolean Expressions
Boolean Logic was invented by the mathematician George Boole, 1815-1864 who was the
first professor of Mathematics at University College Cork (UCC). The algebra on which
Boolean logic is based is used extensively to build electronic circuits and write computer
programs. Boolean logic, therefore, forms the basis of all modern digital devices and
software systems.

Boolean expressions are to Boolean algebra, what algebraic expressions are to algebra, and
arithmetic expressions are to arithmetic. At any given moment in time, a Boolean expression
will evaluate to either True or False. It can never be anything in between.

Boolean expressions are so important that it could be argued that the secret to good
programming lies in the formation of good Boolean expressions. This is the responsibility of
the programmer.

KEY POINT: All Boolean expressions evaluate to one of two values - True or
False.

True and False are two Python keywords which technically behave as if they were the
numbers 1 and 0.

Simple Boolean Expressions

A simple Boolean expression is one that uses a single relational operator (e.g. greater than,
less than or equal to etc.) to compare (i.e. relate) two values.

For example, 7 > 3 (seven greater than three) is a simple Boolean expression that
compares the numbers 7 and 3 under the relation of ‘greater than’. It evaluates to True
because 7 is a bigger number than 3. On the other hand, the expression 7 < 3 evaluates to
False, because seven is not less than three.

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Simple Boolean expressions (as created by the basic relational operators) are the basic
building blocks used to implement decisions and loops in Python.

Python supports the six relational operators given below.

Relational operators are binary operators because they need two operands in order to work.
Although in practice operands are usually numeric, operands can be of any datatype that
results from a Python expression. String operands, for example, can be compared using
lexicographic ordering of their constituent characters.

Some more examples of simple Boolean expressions (aka conditions) are presented below.
(Note: 𝑥 = 1, 𝑦 = 0 and 𝑧 = −1.)

Condition Result Condition Result

6 >= 5 True 5 > 𝑥 True
0 > 1 False 𝑥 > 𝑦 True
1 < 0 False 𝑥 <= 𝑦 False
1 == 0 False 𝑦 <= 0 True
4 == 4 True 𝑧 > 𝑦 False
4 <= 4 True 𝑥 == 𝑧 False
3!= 4 True 0 == 𝑦 True
3 <= 4 True 𝑥!= 𝑦 True

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Compound Boolean Expressions
Compound Boolean expressions are formed by connecting simple Boolean expressions
together using any of the three Python Boolean operators - and, or, and not.

KEY POINT:
Boolean operators can only operate on Boolean values i.e. True/False.

Just like simple Boolean expressions, compound Boolean expressions always evaluate to
either True or False.

The combinations of values for inputs and their corresponding outputs for and, or, and not
can be conveniently represented in a tabular format known as a truth table.

not is the simplest of the three Python Boolean operators. It is a unary operator meaning
that it can only work on one operand at a time. The truth table showing the relationship
between some proposition A and not A is shown below.

Both and, and or are binary operators meaning that they require two operands to work. The
truth tables for and, and or are shown below.

The (binary) inputs are given by the columns A and B and the output for these inputs is
shown in the rightmost column.

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Examples
For the purpose of the examples shown below we will assume that we have a number of
variables assigned as, x = 1, y = 0, z = −1 and valid = True, finished = False

Condition Result
x == 1 and y == 0 True
x == y or z == −1 True
x ! = y and y ! = −z True
not valid False
z ≤ y and finished False
z > y or valid True
finished and not valid False
not finished or not valid True

Evaluate the following Boolean expressions

True and False

not True or False

True and not True

not True or not False
not True and not False

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The Guessing Game
The remainder of this section will focus on the concepts of selection, iteration and
programming logic. A basic ‘guess the number’ game is used as a platform on which to
develop ideas and techniques associated with these concepts. As new concepts are
introduced they are exemplified by incorporating them so that they add functionality into the
game program. The result is seven versions as follows.

Guess Game v1: This is a basic guess game. The base program generates a random
number which the user is asked to guess. If the user guess is correct the program displays
an appropriate message.

Guess Game v2: This time the program displays a message informing the user that they
were either correct or incorrect based on the value entered.

Guess Game v3: In this version of the game the user is provided with more detailed
feedback about their guess i.e. correct, too high or too low.

Guess Game v4: This is the same as version 3 except that the user is given at most three
chances to guess the correct number. If the user guess correctly within the three allocated
chances the program terminates.

Guess Game v5: In this version of the game, the program continues until the user makes
the correct guess – a subtle but important and powerful enhancement on the previous
version. Each time the user enters a guess the program continues to display one of the three
messages, i.e. correct, too high or too low.

Guess Game v6: A refinement on the previous version whereby after guessing correctly, the
user is offered the opportunity to play the game again. If the user enters “N” for no the game
exits. Otherwise the program generates a new random number and the game starts again.

Guess Game v7: In this final version of the game, the functionality of the game is the exact
same as version 6. However, this version validates any data entered by the user i.e. it
checks that the guess, is in fact, a number before proceeding.

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Selection (if, else, elif)
Selection statements are used by programmers to build alternative execution paths through
their code. As already stated they are commonly referred to as decision statements.

Python provides built in supports for three different kinds of selection statements:
- single option (the basic if statement)
- double option (the if-else statement)
- multiple option (the if-elif-[else] statement)

When a running program executes a selection statement, it evaluates a condition, and based
on the result of this evaluation it will decide which statement(s) to execute next.

The basic if statement

The syntax and semantics of Python’s single option if-statement are illustrated and
described below.

If Python evaluates the condition to True,

then the conditional code inside the if
statement will be executed.

If the condition evaluates to False, then

the conditional code is skipped and
execution continues from the next line of
code after the if-statement.

Note the use of the colon at the end of the

line and also the fact that the conditional
code must be indented. Flow chart illustration of if-statement

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Example (Guess game v1)
The program below generates a random number between 1 and 10 (number) and prompts
to user to guess the number (guess).

Guessing Game v1
(Uncommenting line 5 will help you test this program faster)

 The if statement on line 10 evaluates the condition guess == number

 The execution of lines 11 and 12 are conditional upon the result of this evaluation.
Notice the indentation of these lines.
They will be executed only if the condition evaluates to True
o The condition will evaluate to True if the guess entered by the user is the same
as the computer’s generated number
o The condition will evaluate to False if the guess entered by the number is not the
same as the computer’s generated number

 The last line is always executed (unconditionally)

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The if-else statement
The syntax and semantics of Python’s double option if-statement are illustrated and
described below.

If Python evaluates the condition to True, the

block of code associated with the if-statement
(i.e. the if-block) is executed.

Otherwise, the block of code associated with

the else statement (i.e. the else-code block)
is executed.

In other words, the else block is executed

only when the condition is evaluated by Python
to False.

Once either block has been executed the flow

of control continues at the next line
immediately following the else-block Flow chart illustration of if-else-statement

KEY POINT:
All conditional code must be indented to the same level by the programmer.

Finally, it is important to recognise that the two blocks are mutually exclusive. In any given
run of the program either one block or the other will be executed, but never both.

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Example (Guess game v2)
This example extends guessing game v1 by displaying some messages to the user if they
guess the wrong number.

Guessing Game v2

 The condition guess == number on line 10 is pivotal here again

- Lines 11 – 13 are selected for execution if the condition evaluates to True
- Lines 15 – 17 are selected for execution if the condition evaluates to False

 Python will always execute the last line of the above program as it is not part of the if-
else statement

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 Compare the logic of the two code snippets below. What do you
notice?

Programming Exercise 5.1

Re order the individual lines of code shown below into a program that:
a) generates two random numbers between 0 and 12
b) calculates their product
c) prompts the user to enter the product of the two numbers
d) displays an appropriate response to the user’s attempt

Note - three of the lines are surplus to requirements.

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The if-elif-[else] statement
The syntax and semantics of Python’s multiple option if-statement are illustrated and
described below.

 The first condition is always inside an if statement

 There can be as many elif statements as required

 Each elif statement must include a condition

 The use of a final else statement is optional (indicated by square brackets)

 The if, elif and else keywords must all be at the same level of indentation.

 A colon must be used at the end of any lines containing if, elif and else

 Each condition is evaluated in sequence. Should Python evaluate a condition to True

then the associated statement(s) are executed and the flow of control continues from the

next line following the end of the entire if-elif statement. If none of the conditions are

found to be True, then Python executes any statement(s) associated with the else.

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The logic of an if-elif-[else] statement is illustrated using the flowchart below.

Flow chart illustration of if-elif-[else]-statement

Use the space below to reflect on what you have learned about
Python’s three types of selection statements.

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Example (Guess game v3))
This example enhances guessing game v2 by displaying more helpful messages to the user
when they make an incorrect guess.

Guessing Game v3

Think about it – when you ask someone to guess a number between one and ten there are
exactly three possible outcomes. The guess can be
- the same as the number you are thinking of
- lower than the number you are thinking of
- higher than the number you are thinking of

KEY POINT: The multiple option if statement should be used to model situations
from the real world where there are multiple possible outcomes that require
separate specific processing. In this example, that processing is a message
tailored to the user’s response.

 In any given run of the above example Python will execute either lines 11 and 12, or 14
and 15, or 17 and 18. These lines are mutually exclusive.

 As was the case with the earlier versions of this program Python will always execute the
last line of the above program as it is not part of the if-elif-else statement

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 Programming Exercises 5.1:
Fill in the blanks below without altering the logic of the example
program on the previous page. Log your thoughts as you proceed.

Outline any considerations that would have to be made by a programmer to

avoid having to duplicate lines 14 and 17 in the example program.

In what way(s) did either/both of the above tasks promote metacognition?

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 BREAKOUT ACTIVITIES (selection)

BREAKOUT 5.1: Task Development

Use the space provided to complete the flowchart shown below.5

5
See https://github.com/pdst-lccs/lccs-python/blob/master/Section%205%20-
%20Programming%20Logic/Breakouts/Breakout%205.1%20-%20Task%20Development/README.txt for some
ideas on how to develop this task in the classroom.

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 Identify and describe five different modifications and/or
extensions you could make to this task that would be suitable
for LCCS

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BREAKOUT 5.2: Automated Teller Machine (ATM) Menu System
The Python program below (copied directly from Section 1) displays the ATM menu shown
on the right hand side.

Based on the above, list as many requirements as you can, that

could be used elicit the concepts and techniques you have
learned in this workshop.

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Iteration (for and while loops)
Iteration is a programming technique that allows programs to execute statements multiple
times. Python provides built in supports for two different kinds of iteration statements:
- the while loop
- the for loop

We now consider these in turn.

The while loop

This is Python’s most general (and therefore) flexible loop construct.

The syntax and semantics of Python’s while loop are illustrated and described below.

In Python, while loops are introduced with the keyword

while. This is followed by some condition which has to
be made up by the programmer (this is the ‘hard’ part!).

If the result of the condition is True, the statement(s)

that make up the loop body are executed. These
statements must be indented.

When Python reaches the last line of the loop body the
flow of control loops back to the condition which is
evaluated again. (Python will know the last line of the
loop body from the levels of indentation.)

The above process continues until the result of the

condition is found to be False. Flow chart illustration of while loop

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When (and if) the condition is False Python skips the loop body, and the flow of control
resumes at the next statement following the loop body.

It should be noted that it is the programmer’s responsibility to ensure that the loop body
contains a line of code that will cause the loop condition to eventually become False.
Otherwise, the loop will never terminate. Such loops are called infinite loops.

It is also worth noting out that the loop body might not ever be executed. This situation would
arise when the condition evaluates to False before the first iteration. If this happens the
loop body is skipped and the flow of control continues from the first statement after the loop
body.

Because the condition ‘guards’ entry into the loop, it is referred to as the loop guard.

KEY POINT: The loop body is executed each time the loop guard is evaluated
to True.

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Example
This short program shows the main features of a while loop.

Simple while loop demo.

The program displays the message Hello World ten times. The string Goodbye is displayed
once before the program exits.

 The loop is introduced by the while keyword on line 7. Note the use of colon (:) at the
end of this line.

 The condition counter <= 10 is central how the loop operates. The loop will be
executed as long as this condition remains True. The condition is initially True
because the variable counter was initialised to 1 on line 4

 Lines 8 and 9 make up the loop body.

- line 8 tells Python to display the string, Hello World
- line 9 tells Python to increase the value of counter by 1 (recall running totals)

 The next line to be executed after line 9 is always line 7. (This is the iteration)

 Each time line 7 is executed the value of counter will have increased by one since the
previous iteration. Eventually, counter will have reached a value of 11 and the
condition will be found to be False. At this point the flow of control jumps beyond the
loop body and line 12 is the next, and final, line of the program to be executed.

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It is well worth investing some time in this example to make sure you understand exactly
how while loops are executed at runtime.

If we define an iteration to be the number of times a loop body has been executed, we can
use the technique of tracing to keep track of the loop’s progress.

Initially, (before any iterations), counter is set to 1, there is no program output displayed,
and the condition counter <= 10 is True. After one iteration of the loop, counter has a
value of 2, the string Hello World is displayed and the condition remains True.

Continue in this way until you complete the ‘trace diagram’ shown below.

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Example (Guess game v4)
Let’s say we wanted to enhance our guessing game to give the user three chances.

We start off in the knowledge that version 3 of the program works properly for one chance.
Our enhancement can be achieved simply by ‘wrapping’ the code from version 3 inside a
while loop that runs three times. A solution is presented below.

Guessing Game v4

The technique of wrapping code inside a loop in very important in the development of
computer programs and systems.

Code wrapping is based on a notion that, if a piece of working code can be written using
sequence/selection control structures only, then it should be relatively straightforward to put
that code inside a loop.

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 Complete the ‘trace diagram’ shown below for Guessing Game v4

The diagram has been complete up to, but not including, the point when the user is about to
enter a guess for the first time (i.e. the first execution of line 13).

The computer has generated a random number of 5 which has been recorded as number.
The value has been displayed and counter has been initialised to zero. The condition
counter < 3 has been evaluated to False and this has also been recorded. You take
over from this point.

Proceed by making up a value (i.e. guessing a number) and recording it in the first box
underneath guess. Now trace the execution of line 14. This requires you (instead of Python)
to evaluate the condition guess == number. Record your answer in the second black box.

Continue in this manner until the program has run to completion.

Experiment! Make some changes to the code.

Try achieving the same logic using different conditions e.g.
counter <= 3 or counter < 4. How would these conditions
affect the initial value of counter?

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Example (Guess game v5)
In this version of the game we will introduce a Boolean variable to enable the program to
continue until the user makes the correct guess (no matter how many guesses this may
take!).

Guessing Game v5

A Boolean variable is a variable used to store a Boolean value. In Python the only two
Boolean values are True and False.

In this example, the name of the Boolean variable is correct. It is initialised to False on
line 7. The use of the variable correct (lines 7, 10 and 15) is the central feature of this
program.

The loop keeps going as long as the correct is False. Logically, this is the same as saying
that the loop continues as long as not correct is True. The only place correct is set to
True is on line 15 which gets executed if and only if the value of guess is the same as the
value of number.

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 Complete the ‘trace diagram’ shown below for Guessing Game v5

The diagram has been completed up to but not including the first execution of line 12 i.e. the
user is about to enter a guess for the first time.

The computer has generated a random number of 8 which has been recorded as number.
The value has been displayed and the Boolean variable correct has been initialised to
False. The condition not correct has been evaluated to True and this has also been
recorded. You take over from this point.

Proceed by making up a value (i.e. guessing a number) and recording it in the first box
underneath guess. Now trace the execution of line 13. This requires you (instead of Python)
to evaluate the condition guess == number. Record your answer in the second black box.

Continue in this manner until the program has run to completion.

Take a moment to compare the loop guards used in versions 4

and 5. In what ways are they similar? How do they differ?

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Example (Guess game v6)
In this version, we add one final piece of functionality. This time when the user guesses
correctly, instead of terminating the loop (and program), this program will ask the user if they
want to play another game. If the user responds with anything other than N (for no), the
program generates a new random number and continues.

Guessing Game v6

This ‘play again’ logic is incorporated by using another Boolean variable, keepGoing which
is initially set to True (line 8).

The loop will continue as long as the condition on line 11 evaluates to True. But the
condition here is simply keepGoing so as long as this variable remains True the loop will
continue.

The only circumstances where keepGoing is set to False is on line 19. Can you figure out
from the code what these circumstances are?

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Example (Guess game v7)
In this last version of the program there is no new functionality added. Rather, the program
demonstrates a standard technique used to validate data entered by the user.

If you run any version of the guess game before this and enter a non-numeric value as the
guess you will notice that the program crashes (runtime error). The reason for this is that all
earlier versions make the (incorrect) assumption that a user will always enter the correct
type of data, which is not very realistic for any production system.

Guessing Game v7

Take some time to study the validation technique used here (lines 12 – 15) and see if you
can figure out how it works. The condition on line 14 is key. Also notice that lines 12 and 15
are identical but appear at different levels of indentation. A good starting point would be to
isolate the four lines of code into a separate program and experiment.

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The following pseudo-code outlines a general pattern used to ensure some value entered by
the end-user is valid.

read value from end-user

loop for as long as the value is invalid:
[display error message]
read value from end-user
process value

Experiment!
Try making the following changes to see what happens.
- Version 4 change the initial value of counter to 10
- Version 5 change the initial value of correct to be True
- Version 6 change the initial value of keepGoing to be False
- Version 7 remove (comment out line 18

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The for loop
The for loop is a more specific iteration construct than its while counterpart in the sense
that it is designed specifically for stepping through the items in a sequence.

for loops are the preferred looping mechanism when the number of required iterations is
known in advance (of runtime). Because of their nature they are also commonly used to
traverse strings and lists (which are both sequence types).

The syntax and semantics of a for loop are described and illustrated as follows:

The loop starts by assigning the first item in the

sequence to the loop variable referred to as
iterating_variable. Next, the statement(s) that
make up the loop body are executed.

The loop continues the cycle of assigning the

next item in the sequence to the iterating
variable and then processing it in the loop body
until the entire sequence is used up.

Observe the use of colon (:) and also that the

statements which make up the loop body are
indented.
for loop flowchart
KEY POINT:
It is essential to be able to recognise situations where a loop is required in a
program. The choice of loop construct does not matter greatly. Most loops that
can be programmed with a while construct can also be constructed using a
for construct and vice versa.

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Example
The short program serves to demonstrate main features of a for loop.

Simple for loop demo. Program Output

The program output shown to the right above displays the message Hello World ten times.
The value of counter is also displayed alongside the string. The string Goodbye is displayed
once, before the program exits.

The first thing to observe is how much shorter this program is compared to the simple while
loop program we say earlier.

In order to understand the example, it is helpful to understand how range works. Range can
be thought of as a built-in function which returns a list of values. In the above example the
call range(10) returns a list of all the integers from 0 to 9.
(see https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#typesseq-range for a complete
description.)

The for loop works by iterating over each value in the sequence (i.e. 0 through to 9). At the
start of each iteration the value of the next item in the sequence is assigned to the loop
variable counter.

Notice how at the start of each iteration the iterating variable is assigned the next value in
the sequence. The loop ends when the last value in the sequence has been used.

Once the loop terminates, execution continues at the next line after the loop body.

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Example 1 - using a for loop to draw the square
Recall from section 1 of this manual the following code which uses the turtle graphics library
to draw a simple square as shown.

As can be seen the two lines shown (here to the right)

are repeated 4 times – this is an indication that it should
be possible to use a loop.

The same functionality can be achieved by wrapping

these repeating lines in a for loop as shown here to
the right.

Example 2 – Guessing Game v4

The code below shows an implementation of Guessing Game v4 shown earlier. This version
uses a for loop (line 8) instead of the while loop which was used in the original version.
You should take some time to compare the two implementations.

We are now ready to attempt our first for loop programming exercises.

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 Programming Exercises 5.2 (for loops)
1. Wrap the following code blocks in for loops to create the shapes shown.

2. Write three separate programs to display the shapes shown.

A pentagon. There are 5 A hexagon. There are 6

sides and the angle at each sides drawn in a rotation of A circle.
vertex is 72° 360°

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 155
3. The pygame program below displays the first three rows of the chequer board as
outlined in the breakout session following Section 1 of this manual.

import pygame, sys

from pygame.locals import *

# start the pygame engine

pygame.init()

# create a 400x400 window

window = pygame.display.set_mode((400, 400))
pygame.display.set_caption('Chequer Board')

# define some colors

BLACK = (0, 0, 0)
WHITE = (255, 255, 255)

window.fill(WHITE) # paint the window white

# Row 1
pygame.draw.rect(windowSurface, BLACK, (0, 0, 50, 50))
pygame.draw.rect(windowSurface, BLACK, (100, 0, 50, 50))
pygame.draw.rect(windowSurface, BLACK, (200, 0, 50, 50))
pygame.draw.rect(windowSurface, BLACK, (300, 0, 50, 50))
# Row 2
pygame.draw.rect(windowSurface, BLACK, (50, 50, 50, 50))
pygame.draw.rect(windowSurface, BLACK, (150, 50, 50, 50))
pygame.draw.rect(windowSurface, BLACK, (250, 50, 50, 50))
pygame.draw.rect(windowSurface, BLACK, (350, 50, 50, 50))
# Row 3
pygame.draw.rect(windowSurface, BLACK, (0, 100, 50, 50))
pygame.draw.rect(windowSurface, BLACK, (100, 100, 50, 50))
pygame.draw.rect(windowSurface, BLACK, (200, 100, 50, 50))
pygame.draw.rect(windowSurface, BLACK, (300, 100, 50, 50))

# update the window display

pygame.display.update()

# run the game loop

while True:
for event in pygame.event.get():
if event.type == QUIT:
pygame.quit()
sys.exit()

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 156
When the program is run it displays the pattern illustrated below.

Use the space provided to record how you might modify the
program to exploit the power of loops

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Dice Frequency Program
The program below simulates a one roll of a die by generating a random number between 1
and 6 and repeats this process one thousand times. The program then uses the plotly
library to display a bar chart depicting the frequency count for 1000 rolls of a 6 sided die.

Experiment!
Key in (or copy+paste from GitHub) the program and make sure it
runs without any syntax errors.

1. Modify the code by altering the number of dice rolls. What do you notice? What
hypothesis could be developed by using this program?

2. Examine the three bar charts on the next page. Can you explain the differences?

3. How might this exercise be adapted to some different context suitable for LCCS?

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 158
Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 159
 BREAKOUT ACTIVITIES (Iteration)

BREAKOUT 5.3: Text Analysis

The table below depicts some of the most common words found in two books – Harry Potter
and the Chamber of Secrets6 and Alice in Wonderland7. Study the data carefully.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Alice in Wonderland

the 3755 the: 1507
to: 1987 and: 714
and: 1968 to: 703
a: 1703 a: 606
of: 1596 of: 490
was: 1243 she: 484
his: 1108 said: 416
Harry: 1065 it: 346
said: 1035 in: 345
he: 975 was: 328
in: 956 I: 261
had: 668 you: 252
at: 644 as: 237
you: 592 Alice: 221
it: 583 that: 213
that: 564 her: 203
as: 533 at: 197
I: 508 had: 175

What are your observations?

6https://github.com/pdst-lccs/lccs-python/blob/master/Section%205%20-%20Programming%20Logic/Breakouts/Breakout%205.3%20-
%20Text%20Analysis/Harry%20Potter%20and%20the%20Chamber%20of%20Secrets.txt
7 https://github.com/pdst-lccs/lccs-python/blob/master/Section%205%20-%20Programming%20Logic/Breakouts/Breakout%205.3%20-
%20Text%20Analysis/Alice%20in%20Wonderland.txt

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 160
The data shown was generated by the program listing shown below.

Explain the purpose of the file books.txt in the above

program.

Using your knowledge of plotly picked up from previous exercises can you add
the necessary lines to the above program so that it generates a chart similar to that
shown below – notice that number of most common words is reduced from 20 to 10.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 161
BREAKOUT 5.4: Sample Applied Learning Task 2
Study the program below carefully and answer the questions that follow8.

8Note: The file sample.txt may be downloaded from https://github.com/pdst-lccs/lccs-python/blob/master/Section%205%20-

%20Programming%20Logic/Breakouts/Breakout%205.4%20-%20Sample%20ALT2/sample_text.txt

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 162
 Identify the Python constructs and features contained in this
program that you have learned about in this workshop.

Does the program contain any features that you are not familiar
with? If so, what strategies would you use to overcome this
knowledge deficit?

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 Discuss the program in the context of LCCS ALT 2 and devise a
suitable brief/assessment instrument to which this (or some
variation of this) would be a possible solution. You should state
all pre-requisites, requirements and assumptions clearly.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 164
BREAKOUT 5.5: Maths Multiplication Tutor (MMT)
For this final task you are required to implement a Python maths tutor using the guess game
we developed earlier to guide you along the way. Version 1 is provided below.

Your implementation should be phased along the same lines used during the development
of the guess game i.e. complete each version before moving on to the next.

MMT v1
This is a basic version provided above. The computer generates two random numbers and
prompts the user to enter their product. If the user’s answer is correct the program displays a
message.

MMT v2
This time the program should display a message informing the user that they were either
correct or incorrect based on the value they enter.

MMT v3
In this version of the application the user should be provided with more detailed feedback
about their answer i.e. correct, too high or too low.

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MMT v4
This is the same as version 3 except that the program should use a while loop to give the
user at most three chances to get the correct answer.

MMT v5
In this version of the application, the program should continue until the user gets the correct
answer. Each time the user enters an answer the program continues to display one of the
three messages, i.e. correct, too high or too low.

MMT v6
This version should refine the previous version so that after entering the correct answer, the
user is offered the opportunity to continue with a new expression. If the user enters “N” for
no the application should exit. Otherwise the program should generate two new random
number and the application should start again.

MMT v7
In this final version of the application, the functionality should remain exactly the same as
version 6. However, this version should validate any data entered by the user i.e. it checks
that the user’s answer is in fact a number before proceeding.

Identify five additional requirements that could be incorporated

into the MMT application.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

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 Take one example task/program you encountered so far in this
manual, and describe how it could be adapted to a different
context to teach some aspect of Python.

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 Section 6

Modular Programming using Functions

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Introduction
Functions are the building blocks of programs. They allow programmers to organise their
code into logically-related sections.

In order to understand where functions fit into the overall scheme of things it is useful to
have some understanding of the architecture of a Python program. This is depicted in the
following illustration

As can be seen a Python program is typically made up of many components. One of the key
components is called a module. Modules can be thought of as individual Python script files
(i.e. a file with a .py extension) made up mostly of functions. It is useful to think of a Python
program as a collection of modules.

At runtime, modules and function co-operate with one another to achieve some desired
result. Program execution starts in one special module called the top level module which is
also commonly referred to as the ‘main’ program.

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Modules can be classified into the following three groups:
1. User-defined modules: These are modules that are written by the programmer as part
of the program which is being developed (aka the current development)

2. Standard library modules: These are modules that come pre-installed as part of
Python. The Python standard library is designed to save programmers from having to
come up with their own solutions to common programming problems. As such, it
comprises a full suite of off-the-shelf, ready to go solutions in the form of built-in
functions.

Some examples of Python libraries we have already come across are math, random,
statistics, and turtle. See https://docs.python.org/3/library/index.html for a
complete reference.

3. 3rd party modules: These are modules that are developed by an external source either
for commercial purposes or as open source. There are literally thousands – some
examples include tkinter, numpy, plotly, scipy, Django, and flask. The Python
Package Index (PyPI) is a repository of software for the Python programming language.
See https://pypi.org/ for more information.

KEY POINT: A Python program consists of one or more modules and modules
are made up of functions. Each individual module is a Python script or .py file.

So, modules and functions are constructs used by programmers to organise their code into
separate units (or chunks). A package is another such construct – it is used to group a
number of related modules into a single entity. Conceptually, it is helpful to think of a
package as a set of modules that reside on the file system in the same folder/directory.

Programmers can use the Python import statement to make the functionality of external
modules accessible to the script they are currently developing. These external modules can
be individual modules or multiple modules that have been grouped together into a package.

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For the purpose of Leaving Certificate Computer Science (LCCS), a typical Python program
might be made up of a single file that draws on and exploits the functionality made available
by the standard library and, potentially, some other third party package(s).

Most Python files are organised into three sections – the import statements (typically at the
top), the function definitions (by far the longest and most important section) and finally the
main code i.e. the section from where the program execution begins.

We will now take a closer look at functions.

Functions
The ‘art of computer programming’ can be seen as a process of designing and creating
individual functions and combining them together into larger units of code called modules.
Over time, programmers combine these modules to produce the final program.

We have already learned that functions provide a means for programmers to organise their
code, but what exactly is a function and why are they important?

KEY POINT: A function is a short piece of re-usable code that carries out a
specific task.

Each individual Python module is (mostly) made up of functions.

User-defined vs Built-in functions

Functions are very useful because they typically provide solutions to common programming
problems e.g. display some text on the screen, read data from the end-user, send a tweet,
process a cash withdrawal etc.

In certain cases, the programming problems are so common that Python provides a built-in
function to do the job. Such functions are called built-in functions.

In other cases, the problem to be solved is so specific to the program being developed that
the programmer needs to design and write the code themselves. Such functions are called
user-defined functions.

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All functions, regardless of whether they are built-in or user-defined are given a name as part
of their definition. The function name can then be used in a program to invoke the code
contained in the function.

We’ll examine the syntax and semantics of defining and invoking functions shortly but first
let’s take a closer look at the two main reasons why functions are considered important:
1. they lead to modular systems
2. they can be used to maximise code reuse and minimise code redundancy

Large scale software systems are very often developed by breaking big problems down into
smaller problems (decomposition). While designers and programmers are working on the
detail of one part of the system they can ignore the rest of the system (abstraction).

Consider the functional decomposition diagram of an ATM/Bank Transaction system show

below. The diagram shows the system broken down into a number of smaller sub-systems.
The functionality of each sub-system can be implemented using functions. This piece-by-
piece approach to developing systems is sometimes called divide and conquer.

Functions are a programming construct that support this divide and conquer approach to
software development. They lend themselves to modular systems which are easier and less
costly to maintain than their non-modular counterparts.

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A second reason why functions are so important is that they can be used to minimise (and
even avoid) code duplication. Consider the following example.

Example 1 – Maximising code reuse and minimising redundancy

Study the short program shown below that displays a slightly adapted version of the Dr
Seuss poem, Green Eggs and Ham

Evaluate the above program by asking - do you recognise any

patterns? Is there any code duplication? Can you spot any typing
mistakes? Elaborate.

The above code is considered poor design because it contains duplication. Lines 1,2 are
duplicated in three different places. This is an example of redundant code. To eliminate the
redundancy, we write a function to display the chorus.

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The program below uses a function to eliminate the duplication referred to earlier.

This program displays the same

output as the program on the
previous page – the only
difference is that this program
uses a function called
displayChorus to eliminate
duplication of code.

Every function must have a name (assigned by the programmer). In this case, the name of
the function is displayChorus and it is defined (or made known to Python) on lines 1–5
inclusive.

The lines from line 7 onwards are executed in sequence. Lines 7, 12 and 17 call the function
displayChorus. Every time the function is called the lines 2-5 are executed. Even though
these lines only appear once in the program they are used on three different occasions.

KEY POINT: When a function is called, the flow of control jumps to the first
line of the function and execution continues from that point to the last line of
the function. Once the last line of the function has been executed the flow of
control jumps back to the point from which the call to the function was initially
made.

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Example 2 – Modular Code
Let’s continue with the same example to demonstrate the use of functions to develop
modular code.

In this program, the code to display each part of the poem is ‘factored’ into separate
functions. The program is considered better than the two previous versions because it is
more modular. Modular code is the result of good design and is both easier and less costly
to maintain than non-modular code.

Consider the differences

between the program shown
here and the two programs
shown earlier in this section.

Even though the three

programs are different they all
do the same thing.

Notice the different level of

indentation inside each
function body.

The above listing defines three functions as follows:

- The function displayChorus is defined on lines 1-5
- The function displayVerse1 is defined on lines 7-11
- The function displayVerse2 is defined on lines 13-17

Lines 19-23 are executed in sequence and cause the poem to be displayed.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 175
Summary
 A Python program is made up of one or more modules. Each individual module is a
Python script or .py file
 Modules are made up mostly of functions.
 Functions are the building blocks of modules (and by extension, programs)
 A function is a short piece of re-usable code that carries out a specific task.
 All functions have a name which must be used to invoke the function’s code
 Python comes with a set of pre-installed modules - called the standard library
 Logically related modules can be grouped together into packages. A package is made up
of multiple modules.
 The functionality of individual modules and entire packages can be made accessible to
other Python files by using the import statement
 Functions that do not require the import statement in order to be accessible are known
as built-in functions e.g. print, input. Python 3.6.x comes with 67 built-in functions;
these are listed in the appendix – more details can be found by browsing to
https://docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html

Reflect on what you have learned about functions so far. Use the
space below to explain what functions are and why they are
important.

Develop your own example to motivate the use of functions.

(The example used in the text was the Dr Seuss poem, Green
Eggs and Ham)

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Basic Function Syntax
Once the ‘need’ for a function in your program has been recognised (the difficult bit!) the
next step is to write the code. For this, we need to understand some syntax (the easy bit!).

Functions are made known to Python by writing a function definition. In Python, the function
definition is made up of two parts - a header and a body.
- the function header (aka the function signature or prototype) is always the first line of the
function definition
- the function body contains the Python statements required to carry out the work of the
function.

The code below illustrates the definition of a function called displayPoem. The function
header is on line 1 and the function body runs from line 2 to 5 inclusive.

Function definition for displayPoem

The function header (this is the very first line in the function definition)
Every function header is composed of four separate parts:
(i) The word def: This is a Python keyword which tells Python to create a new function
object. Every function must start with the def statement.
(ii) The function name (in this case displayPoem):
It is up to the programmer to decide what name to give a function. The rules for
naming functions are the same as those for naming variables.
(iii) Brackets: These provide a mechanism for passing information into functions. In this
example, no information is being passed into the function and therefore nothing
appears between the opening and closing brackets.
(iv) Colon: The colon is used to terminate the function header. If the colon is omitted,
Python will display a syntax error.

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The function body
The body of every Python function consists of one or more Python statements. These
statements combine to provide the function’s task. Although there is no limit to the number of
statements that can be in a function body, it is generally considered good practice to keep
functions short.

Notice how the four lines of code that make up the function body (lines 2 – 5) are indented.
In Python, the statements inside a function body must always be indented. The function
body ends when the indentation ends i.e. when the next statement appears at the same
level of indentation as the def statement.

Calling a function
It is important to realise that the code inside a function body will not be executed unless the
programmer explicitly requests it to be. The term for such a request is a function call.

KEY POINT: A function call causes the code inside the function body to be
executed.

Functions can be called (or invoked) at runtime by writing the name of the function followed
by brackets. The code to call the function displayPoem is shown below.

This line calls the function displayPoem

Note, the brackets are needed but def and colon are not

When the above call is made the four lines in the function body are executed thus causing
the following four lines of text to be displayed on the output console.

One fine day in the middle of the night,

Two dead men got up to fight,
Back to back they faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot each other.

The semantics of a function call are now explained.

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Call semantics
Consider the order in which the lines of code in example program below are processed by
Python.

Python starts at line 1 and notices that it is a function definition and skips over all of the lines
in the function definition until it finds a line that is no longer included in the function (line 8).
On line 8 it notices that it has a function to execute, so it goes back and executes that
function – lines 2-6 inclusive. Once all the lines in the function body have been executed it
continue at line 9. The result of the above program is:

Jack loves to do his homework

He never misses a day
He even loves the men in white
Who are taking him away
The End!

Describe how the above program could be modified so that it would

output the text shown in italics below.
Can you come up with more than one solution and if so which solution
do you think is better?

The Start!
Jack loves to do his homework
He never misses a day
He even loves the men in white
Who are taking him away
The End!

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 Design and write a function to display the output shown below.
Write a line of code to call your function.

Way down south where bananas grow,

A grasshopper stepped on an elephant’s toe.
The elephant said, with tears in its eyes,
‘Pick on somebody your own size.’

Study the program shown carefully and identify two syntax errors.

SYNTAX CHECK: When Python comes across a word it does not

understand it displays a syntax error. Therefore, when a call is made to a
function using a name, a function of that name must already have been
made known to Python with the def keyword.

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Guidelines and Rules for Naming Functions
We begin with a few simple guidelines as opposed to actual rules. These guidelines help
improve program readability (and therefore maintainability).

Function names should be meaningful i.e. they should in some way describe what the
function does. Since functions are usually actions, the name should contain at least one
verb.

If a function name is only one single word, the convention is to use lowercase; if the name of
the function is made up of more than one word, the use of camel case or underscore as a
means of delimiting the words is considered good practice.

The basic syntax rules for naming functions are:

 A function name cannot be a Python keyword (e.g. def, if, while, etc.)
 Function names must contain only letters, digits, and the underscore character, _.
 Function names cannot have a digit for the first character.

Comment on the validity and quality of each of the following

function names

a) sendTweet

b) calculate_salary

c) _login

d) bin

e) 2binary

f) MAX_OF_3

g) Binary Search

h) Search*

i) return

j) Print

k) doSomething

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Function Parameters and Arguments
Let’s return to the homework function we were looking at earlier and ask the question – how
can we modify the function to display the verse using names other than Jack?

Every time this function is called

it always displays precisely the
same text. We’d like to move
away from the concrete name –
Jack – to a more abstract name
– anybody.

One solution would be to have a different version of the function for each different name we
wanted to have it display, but this would contradict the whole purpose of functions which is to
eliminate code duplication.

Another solution is to use parameters.

What we really want is some way of telling the function what name to display as part of the
verse i.e. we need a means to pass information into the function from the code outside the
function. This is exactly the purpose of parameters.

A parameter is a special kind of variable which appears as part of the function header and
can be used inside the function body. Take a look at this!

David loves to do his homework

He never misses a day
He even loves the men in white
Who are taking him away

The function homework modified to use a parameter Program output

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 KEY POINT: A function parameter is a variable which gets it value from the
argument passed in. When a function is called value of the argument is
assigned to the parameter.

Notice personName appears between the brackets in the function header? This is a function
parameter. Parameters are received by functions.

Notice also the text David between brackets in the function call (line 8)? This is a function
argument. Arguments are passed into functions.

Functions can be defined to accept multiple arguments.

Hello World
How are you today?

The function displayGreeting has two parameters Program output

When more than one parameter is received by a function they are separated by commas.
For example, the two parameters msg1 and msg2 are separated by commas on line 1.
Similarly, when more than one argument is passed into a function they are separated by
commas. For example, on line 6 above the two arguments, Hello world and How are you
today? are both separated by commas on line 1.

When the function displayGreeting is called Python performs two assignments:

- the value of the first argument (i.e. Hello world) is assigned to the parameter msg1.
- the value of the second argument (i.e. How are you today?) is assigned to the parameter
msg2.

Parameters are received into a function in the same order as the arguments provided. Check
what happens if the arguments were switched around like this in the function call on line 6.

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Thus far in this section the arguments used in the example programs have all been string
literals. However, arguments can be literals of any datatype (e.g. numeric, Boolean etc.);
arguments can also be expressions made up of variables and/or literal values together.
Be careful though - as a general guide the number of arguments provide should match the
number of parameters provided for in the function header.

Experiment!
Predict what the following calls to the function displayMessage
would do? After making each prediction you should use Python
to see if you were correct.

1.

2.

3.

4.

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 5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 185
 Reflect.
What conclusion(s) about the syntax and semantics of parameters
and arguments did you arrive at from the previous experiment?

Devise a number of test cases that would test the assertion that the
number of arguments passed in as part of the function call should
match the number of parameters provided for in the function header

KEY POINT: The advantage of using parameters and arguments is that they
make functions much more flexible and provide for more general solutions to
problems.
The runtime behaviour of a function can be altered by passing different arguments into it.
This is useful, and a very common way, of achieving abstraction.

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Function Return Values
Functions can be thought of little machines (black box) that accept input(s) and produce
output(s).

In the previous section we learned that data can be passed into functions through the use of
arguments (at the function call) and parameters (as part of the function header). In this
section we explore the use of the return statement as a means to pass data out of a
function.

Consider the function shown below to add the first n non-negative integers.
range(n) generates a list of integers from
0 to n-1 e.g. range(10) [0, 1, 2, 3, … 9]

The for loop iterates over each integer

with the value of the next item in the
sequence being assigned to the loop
variable i

The function works by maintaining a running total of all the numbers from 0 to n+1 in the
variable total. At the start of each loop iteration, the loop variable (i) is assigned the next
value in the sequence. On each iteration of the loop, the value of the loop variable is added
to total and the result is used to update total with the new running total. The loop ends
after the last value in the sequence has been processed.

Line 7 shows the return statement being used to pass the value of total out of the
function.

Line 8, calls the function passing in an argument of 10. The intention is to

calculate the sum of all the integers from 0 to 10. .

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 Experiment!
Key in (or copy+paste from GitHub) the above code and make
the function call. Explain why nothing appears to happen?

The reason nothing appears to happen is that although the function is called and it does
calculate and return the sum of the first 10 non-negative integers, the calling code takes no
action to save or process the result.

KEY POINT: The return value of a function can be saved for further processing
by making the function call part of an assignment statement.

Line 9 in the code below assigns the result of the function (i.e. total) to the variable
answer.

The value of total is passed out of the function (line 7) and assigned to the variable answer (line 9)

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Alternatively, the programmer may decide there is no need to save the result of a function in
a variable and process the result as part of the call. This type of inline processing is shown
on line 10 of the code below where the result of the function is passed in as an argument to
the print built-in function.

In this example the result of the function is not caught by the calling code. Rather, it is
passed directly as an argument to print. This technique is called function composition.

In situations when a functions are used directly as arguments to other functions, Python
starts at the innermost function and works its way out i.e. the inner function is always
evaluated first and evaluation continues from right to left.

For example, let’s say we had a function called sub to subtract two integers (b from a) as
shown below.

When run, the code would display 3, −5, and −2 on separate lines.

As a final note it is worth pointing out that It is not always necessary for a function to return
data. A return statement may be omitted entirely or can be used without an expression (i.e.
just return on its own). In both cases the value returned by Python is None.

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Examples and Exercises
Study each of the following examples carefully – read the code first, predict what it would do.
Then, key the code in and run it to test your prediction(s). In each case you should complete
the reflection exercise provided before you finally move on to implement the programming
challenges at the end.

Temperature and Distance Conversions

The program below implements two functions:
(i) cent2fhar converts from Centigrade to Fahrenheit and
(ii) kms2miles converts from kilometres to miles

What you have learned about functions from this example?

1. Modify the program so that the constant values (e.g. 9/5, 32 and 0.62) are
stored in variables
2. Extend the program with functions to convert from a) miles to kilometres and b)
Fahrenheit to Centigrade

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Compound Interest
The program below can be used to find out which would yield a greater future value:
Scenario A: €10,000 at a rate of 5% for 10 years or
Scenario B: €10,000 at a rate of 10% for 5 years

The formula used is 𝑭𝑽 = 𝒑(𝟏 + 𝒊)𝒕 where, 𝑝 is the initial principal, 𝑖 the interest rate,
expresses as a decimal, and 𝑡 the time in years.
(pow(x,y) is a built-in function that returns x raised to the power of y.)

What you have learned about passing information in and out of

functions from this example?

1. Modify the program so that it can accept the values for principal, interest and
time from the end-user
2. Extend the program so that it can compare compound interest with simple
interest

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 Maximum of Three Numbers
The function below finds and returns the largest of any three integers.
The solution is based on three, two-way comparisons in which each of the integers is
compared to the other two. The individual comparisons are combined into a compound
Boolean condition using the and operator.

Reflect.
How has this example extended your knowledge in relation to forming
Python Boolean expressions?

1. Modify the program so that it prompts the end user to enter three values and
then displays their maximum in a meaningful output message.
How would this implementation be altered if the three numbers were a)
randomly generated or b) read from a file?
2. Use the flowcharts on the next page to implement two alternative solutions for maxOf3
3. Design a flowchart to find the minimum of three numbers.
4. Use your flowchart to implement a function to find the minimum of three values. Call it
minOf3. You could start by copying and pasting the maxOf3 function definition and
renaming it.

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Flowchart 1

Flowchart 2

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Boolean Functions
Boolean functions are functions that return either True or False usually to indicate the
outcome of some test. By convention the name of a Boolean function starts with the prefix
is e.g. isEven might be a Boolean function that tests the ‘evenness’ of a number.

The function uses the remainder

operator (%) to test whether the
value passed in as number is even
or not – if it is the function returns
True. Otherwise, the function will
return False.
The code shown here to the right
demonstrates how the above
function could be used to display
all the even numbers between 1
and 100.

The line is the key. Here, the call to the function appears as part of a
conditional statement. This is fine, since conditions evaluate to True or False and the
function isEven is guaranteed to return one of these values.

We can exploit our knowledge of

even and odd numbers to define the
function isOdd as shown. The
function applies the not operator to
the result of the call to isEven and This is a good example of abstraction because the
returns the result to the caller. implementation of isOdd hides the detail.

Implement the following two Boolean functions

A function to take two values and return True if they are

both equal; False otherwise.

A function to do the opposite to isEqual

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A prime example
A prime number is a positive integer that has exactly two factors; itself and 1.

The Boolean function below isPrime determines whether the number passed in is prime or
not. The function will return True if number is a prime number; False otherwise.

The function works by attempting to divide every integer from 2 up to half the number being
tested (numToCheck) - if the division leaves no remainder, it means the number being
checked has factors and is therefore not prime. The following exercises, based on the test
harness provided are designed to be used to explore the function isPrime.

A test harness for isPrime

a) Predict what the test harness would do?

b) Run the test harness? Was your prediction correct?
c) Investigate. The program looks for factors up to half the number being checked. What
would happen if the program stopped at the square root?
d) Modify the test harness so that it displays the first 100 prime numbers.
e) Make a program that displays the nth prime where n is a number entered by the end
user.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 195
A case study of leap years
Boolean functions provide a useful framework which can be used to determine whether a
given year is leap or not. One example is presented as follows:

Key in/download the code and use

it to determine whether the years
listed are leap or not.

2000

1900
2017
2012
2100

2400

2600

Use the code to derive and record five facts about leap years

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Describe when is a year a leap year

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 Now examine the two implementations below – one is correct and
one contains a subtle error (i.e. one version reports incorrectly
that 2000 is not a leap year.)

Can you explain the subtle error and suggest/implement a

solution.

In isLeapV2 above can you justify the need for the second elif
block? Explain.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 197
 Encapsulate the code shown below into two functions – call them
isLeapV3 and isLeapV4

Compare and contrast the two functions isLeapV3 and

isLeapV4.

Write a one line Boolean function to determine whether a given

year is leap or not

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 198
Using Functions to Validate Data
Functions provide programmers a convenient way to organise code that perform specific
tasks such as data validation. Consider the following scenarios and examples.

1. One common scenario faced by novice programmers is the need to read non-negative
integers from the end user. Since the input command returns a string we need to write
code that ensures the data entered is numeric before converting it to an integer using
int

The following four solutions (and there are many more!) are offered for consideration.

Which of the above solutions do you prefer and why?

Would the functions work to read negatives or floating-point values?

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 199
2. Building on the previous scenario, it may be that we need to make sure that the number
entered is within a specific range.

This time we offer two versions of a solution.

Compare and contrast the two solutions. What is the main difference?
Comment on the use of the flag valid in the above code. Under what
circumstance is the value of valid set to True?

3. The function below can be used to ensure a user enters either Y or N

Can you suggest any alternative solution(s)?

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 200
 Programming Exercises 6.1
1. A factor is any integer which divides exactly into another integer.
For example, 5 is a factor of 20 because 5 divides exactly into 20 (20 ÷ 5 = 4) leaving no
remainder.

The code below depicts two Boolean functions isFactorV1 and isFactorV2. Both
accept two parameters, n1 and n2 and return True if n2 is a factor of n1; False
otherwise.

Which of these two implementations do you prefer and why?

The complete list of factors of 20 is: 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, and 20.

Write a program that lists all the positive factors of any positive integer entered by the
end-user

2. The greatest common divisor (GCD) of two integers, a and b is the largest integer that
divides both of them with no remainder. Study the steps shown below to find the GCD of
63 and 72:

Step 1: List the factors of the two numbers:

The factors of 63 are: 1, 3, 7, 9, 21, 63
The factors of 72 are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, 72
Step 2: Find the largest integer that these two lists share in common i.e. 9

Design and implement a function to find the GCD of any two positive integers.

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3. Write a program that reads a date as three integers (day, month and year) from the
keyboard. The program should output the message Valid if the date is valid and Invalid
otherwise. A valid date is any date spanning from 01/01/2000 up to the current date.

4. Ordinal numbers are the words representing the rank of a number with respect to some
position (i.e. first, second, third, etc.). Ordinal numbers are alternatively written in English
with numerals and letter suffixes: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.

Write a function called ordinal that accepts a

(validated) number as input and returns a string Input Output
representation of its ordinal value by 1 1st
concatenating an appropriate suffix to the number 2 2nd
that was inputted. 3 3rd
12 12th
The table shown to the right lists some example 21 21st
inputs and outputs.

Hint #1: If the number ends in 11, 12 or 13 the suffix is ‘th’. In all other cases the suffix can
be determined from the last digit of the number from the table below.

Number 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Suffix th st nd rd th th th th th th

Hint #2: The last two digits of a number can be extracted by using modulo 100 and the last
digit of a number can be extracted by using modulo 10.

Hint #3: The solution can be arrived at by re-arranging the code below into the correct order

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 202
5. Modify the program from exercise 3 to display the date in the format d MMM yyyy,
where,
- d is the ordinal day number
- MMM is the abbreviated month name (i.e. Jan – Dec)
- yyyy is the four-digit year.

6. The table to the right displays a 10 step

algorithm for calculating the date of
Easter Sunday for any given year
(given by the pth day of the nth month)

The code on the left hand side below

provides a partial implementation of the
algorithm. The code on the right shows
implementations of ordinal and
toEasterMonth

a) Complete the Python implementation of the algorithm started above

b) Use your algorithm to display the dates of Easter Sunday between 2010 and 2030
c) Investigate the earliest and latest dates of Easter Sundays in the 21st century

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d) Investigate different strategies (e.g. plotly, Microsoft Excel) you could use to illustrate
the data in a histogram such as the one illustrated below9.

Distribution of the Easter Sundays over a 5,700,000 year cycle

9
Taken from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computus#/media/File:Easter_Distribution.svg

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 204
Recursion
Recursion is an example of a divide-and-conquer problem solving technique whereby a
solution is expressed in terms of a simpler version of the same problem.

Once classic example is the factorial function which is defined as follows:

The factorial of a non-negative integer, 𝑛 denoted by 𝑛! (pronounced n factorial) is the
product of all non-negative integers from 𝑛 down to 1 and where 0! is accepted to have a
value of 1.

𝑛! = 𝑛 × (𝑛 − 1) × (𝑛 − 2) × … × 3 × 2 × 1 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑛 > 0 𝑎𝑛𝑑 0! = 1

The evaluation of 5! for example is the product of all the

integers from 5 down to 1 inclusive as shown here to 5! = 5 × 4 × 3 × 2 × 1 = 120
the right:

The factorial of a non-negative integer, 𝑛 can also be defined as 𝑛 multiplied by the factorial
of 𝑛 − 1 (for all 𝑛 > 0). This can be expressed mathematically as follows:

𝑛! = 𝑛 × (𝑛 − 1)! 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑛 > 0 𝑎𝑛𝑑 0! = 1

Notice how this definition defines factorial in terms of itself. This is the essence of recursion.

KEY POINT: A recursive function is a function that is defined in terms of itself.

The code below shows both non-recursive and recursive implementations of factorial.

non-recursive factorial recursive factorial

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 205
Let us consider how 5! would be evaluated recursively.

The evaluation can be considered in two stages. In the first stage (illustrated below) the
number whose factorial is being sought is multiplied by the factorial of the previous number.
This ‘chain’ of operations continues until 0! is reached.

5! = 5 × 4!
4! = 4 × 3!
3! = 3 × 2!
2! = 2 × 1!
1! = 1 × 0!
0! = 1

In the second stage of the evaluation the chain is ‘unwound’ starting from the evaluation of
0!. The result of this enables the completion of each successive step up the chain until 5! is
reached. This is depicted as follows

0! = 1
1 × 0! = 1
2 × 1! = 2
3 × 2! = 6
4 × 3! = 24
5 × 4! = 120
5! = 120

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 206
 The plotly library module can be
used to create a visualisation of the
factorials of the first six non-negative
integers.

The chart generated by the program

to the right is shown below.

Program Context and Call stack

It is worth noting that recursion is considered to be computationally expensive because it
requires a relatively large amount of memory to implement

KEY POINT: Recursive function are memory intensive

To understand why it is the case, it is first necessary to understand two concepts: the
program context and the call stack.

The program context can be thought of as the internal program state used by Python as it
executes a program. The program state consists of data such as the address of the current
instruction, variables and their values. The call stack is an area of memory where Python
saves the program context when a function is called. So, every time a function is called,
Python makes a copy of the current program context and saves it on the call stack. When
the flow of control eventually returns to the function, the contents of the call stack are loaded
back in as the current program context. (This process is referred to as popping the stack.) In
this way, a program can continue running with the same context it was using at the point
when the call to the function was made.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 207
 The code shown here to the right is a
recursive implementation of the sumOfN
function described earlier. The purpose of
the function is to return the sum of the first
n integers.

When line 8 of the program is executed the

program context is saved at the bottom of
the call stack – shown to left in the
illustration below.

This is the program context at the point when sumOfN(5) was called. The call stack is
progressively built up in response to the successive recursive calls to the sumOfN function
made on line 6. This continues until sumOfN is called with an argument of zero.

The current program context is saved on top of the stack each time the function sumOfN is called

At this point the condition on line 3 evaluates to True and the stack begins to unwind on a
last-in, first-out (LIFO) principle. The program context at the point of each call to sumOfN is
restored in the reverse order to which it was saved. The addition operation on line 6 is
completed for each call, eventually leading to an answer of 15.

The stack unwinds eventually leading to the answer, 15

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 208
 Explain the recursive nature of any/all of the following

a) The process for finding the nth Fibonacci number, n>1 (see bottom of page)
b) The process for finding the greatest common divisor of two numbers (Euclid’s algorithm)
c) The process for finding the lowest common multiple of two numbers
d) A binary search
e) A sorting algorithm of your choice

Programming Exercises 6.2

Write a recursive function to implement any or all of the above algorithms

Fibonacci
A Fibonacci sequence is defined to be made up of Fibonacci numbers as follows:
- the first Fibonacci number is, 𝑓𝑖𝑏(0) = 1
- the second Fibonacci number is, 𝑓𝑖𝑏(1) = 1
- the nth Fibonacci number 𝑓𝑖𝑏(𝑛) = 𝑓𝑖𝑏(𝑛 − 1) + 𝑓𝑖𝑏(𝑛 − 2)
After the first two numbers in the sequence each successive number is the sum of the
previous two.
Thus, the first 7 numbers in the Fibonacci sequence are 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 209
 Programming Exercises 6.3

1. Test your knowledge of Python by stating whether each of the following statements
relating to function are True or False

a) The last character in a function header must always be a colon

b) A function definition must appear in a program before it can be called
c) Function names can begin with numbers
d) Function names cannot begin with the underscore character
e) A function name cannot be the same as a Python keyword
f) A function name can be the same as an existing Python built-in function
g) The function body must contain at least one statement
h) It is not necessary to indent every line in the function body
i) The statements inside a function body all must be indented to the same level
j) If a function contains only one statement, that statement can appear on the same line as
the function header
k) Function names must be unique i.e. no two functions can have the same name
l) Every function must accept at least one argument
m) When a function is called, the number of arguments passed in must match the number of
parameters specified in the function header
n) Not every function returns a value
o) A function call can be used as an argument to another function
p) The last line of every function must be a return statement
q) Every function must contain at least one return statement
r) A function can contain several return statements
s) A function can return multiple values
t) The value returned by a function must be assigned to a variable (in the calling statement)

Experiment!
It would be a good exercise to design a simple test program to verify each answer.
For example, to find out whether the last character in a function header must always be a
colon simply write a short program with a function header that does not end in a colon. Run
the program and see what happens.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 210
2. Study the code listing below and see if you can figure out what it does. Use the space on
the right hand side to record the predicted output.

OUTPUT

a) Now key the program in and run it. Compare the predicted output with the actual
output. Is the actual output the same as the expected output?

b) How would the output of the program differ if lines 7 and 12 were removed? Try it.

c) What do you think it would be a bad idea to insert a call to the function bar inside the
function foo?

d) Make the changes necessary so that following outputs are generated. Answer each part
separately and in turn.
(i) (ii) (iii)
Starting bar() Starting foobar() Starting foo()
Leaving bar() Starting foo() Starting bar()
Starting foo() Leaving foo() Leaving bar()
Leaving foo() Leaving foobar() Leaving foo()
Starting foobar() Starting foo() Starting bar()
Leaving foobar() Leaving foo() Leaving bar()
Starting bar() Starting foobar()
Leaving bar() Starting bar()
Leaving bar()
Leaving foobar()

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3. The acronym CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing Test(s) to tell
Computers and Humans Apart.

Arrange the blocks of code shown below into the correct order so that it produces a program
that generates a CAPTCHA, displays it to the user, prompts the user to enter this value, and
displays Correct! if the value entered is the same as the computer generated CAPTCHA;
and Incorrect! otherwise.

a) modify the program so that CAPTCHAs of arbitrary lengths can be generated

b) suggest how the program might behave if the line global captcha was removed from
the function generateNewCAPTCHA

4. Write a program that reads a password from the end-user and validates it according to
the following constraints:
 Passwords must be between nine and twelve characters in length
 Passwords can only contain uppercase letters, lowercase letters, digits, and special
symbols.
 The following special symbols are permitted: _, +, -, *, /, !, ?, &, @, ^.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 212
5. The Collatz sequence10 is defined as follows for the set of positive integers:
𝑛 → 𝑛/2 (for all 𝑛, even) and 𝑛 → 3𝑛 + 1 (for all 𝑛, odd)

Using the rule above and starting with 6, we generate the following sequence:
6 → 3 → 10 → 5 → 16 → 8 → 4 → 2 → 1

It can be seen that this sequence contains 10 terms – starting at 6 and finishing at 1.
Although it has not been proven yet, it is thought that all starting numbers finish at 1.

Implement the Collatz sequence algorithm in Python by converting the pseudo-code below.

Prompt the user to input a positive number – call it N

While N is not positive:
Display an error message
Prompt the user to input a positive number – call it N
While N is not 1:
If N is even
Compute N = N/2
Else
Compute n = 3n+1
Output N

6. Design and implement a function that finds the sum of all the multiples of 3 or 5 below
1000. (Hint: the answer is 233,168)

7. A perfect number is a number whose factors (excluding the number itself) add up to the
number (e.g. 6 = 3 + 2 + 1). Write a program to list the first four perfect numbers.

8. An amicable pair consists of two integers for which the sum of proper divisors (the
divisors excluding the number itself) of one number equals the other. The smallest pair of
amicable numbers is (220, 284). They are amicable because the proper divisors of 220
are 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11, 20, 22, 44, 55 and 110, of which the sum is 284; and the proper
divisors of 284 are 1, 2, 4, 71 and 142, of which the sum is 220.
Implement a function isAmicable(n1, n2) to test whether n1 and n2 make an
amicable pair.

10
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/CollatzProblem.html

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 213
 BREAKOUT ACTIVITIES (Functions)

BREAKOUT 6.1: ATM System

Consider the following trimmed down version of the ATM menu first introduced in Section 1
(breakout 1.1) and developed further in Section 2 (breakout 2.2)

Code to display an ATM menu The ATM menu

In this activity we will develop a modular program with functionality behind each of the menu
options shown above. The system requirements are as follows:
- When the program is started the ATM menu is displayed and the user is prompted to
choose an option
- Once the option is read it should be validated by the system. A valid option is an integer
between 0 and 3 inclusive.
- If the user chooses Option 1 the system will display the account balance
The balance is stored in a variable called balance which is initialised to €0.00 at the
start of every run
 If the user chooses Option 2 the system will prompt the user to enter an amount to lodge.
The amount entered will be added to balance whose value will be updated accordingly.
 If the user chooses Option 3 the system will prompt the user to enter an amount to
withdraw. The amount entered will be subtracted from balance whose value will be
updated accordingly

The system constraints are:

 Lodgements can only be made in multiples of €10
 Withdrawals are permitted only if the amount requested does not exceed the value stored
in balance

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 214
The main program used to drive the ATM menu system is shown here.

The initial task in this activity is to study the above code

carefully. Use the prompts below to help you build up an
understanding of the purpose of the code and how it works

a) Identify the names and purpose of the variables

b) Identify the names of the built-in functions used and the names of the user-defined
functions required to make this program work.

(continued .…)

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 215
 c) Explain how the if statement works (lines 7-14)

d) Explain how the while loop guard works (line 6)

e) Explain why lines 4 and 5 are repeated on lines16 and 17

f) Predict what would happen if you keyed the code in and ran it

g) Key in the program (or download it from GitHub) and run it. What do you observe?

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 216
By this point it should be evident that the main program does not work as intended because
the definitions (bodies) for the functions getChoice, processLodgement and
processWithdrawal are all empty.

These empty function definitions – shown below - are known as a stubs. Stubs are
placeholder functions used as part of the program construction process so that programs
can be run without any syntax errors.

h) Explain the use of pass11 and return in the above code.

i) Why do you think the stub getChoice returns zero?

11pass is a Python keyword. When it is executed, nothing happens. It is useful as a placeholder when a
statement is required syntactically, but no code needs to be executed.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 217
 The next stage of this activity is to incorporate full implementation
of the four functions (shown below) into the main program. Before
you do this you should first study each function carefully and use
the space provided to explain how each one works

Key in (or download) the four functions and make sure they run without any syntax errors.
Experiment by re-arranging the functions into different orders. After every change make sure
to test your program to make sure it still works properly

Test the system with some ‘normal’ use cases e.g. use the system to lodge €100 or
withdraw €30. What’s the balance before and after the transaction?

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 218
 Experiment!
Investigate what happens when you attempt the following ….

a) try to lodge €35?

b) try to withdraw a negative amount?

c) try to withdraw an amount greater than the balance?

d) try to withdraw an amount equal to the balance?

Evaluate.
Identify any features of the solution that you like/dislike.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 219
Suggested Activities (Modifications)12
1. Modify the program so that it the maximum amount that can be withdrawn in any one
transaction is €200.

2. Modify the program so that the account balance can be read from and stored in a file.
The following hints are designed to help
a) You will need to create the initial file -
call it atm.txt – to store the balance.
Insert the value 0.0 the very first time
it is created Initially

b) The function shown below reads the value from the file into the variable balance.

c) The function shown below writes the contents of the variable balance to the file.
Notice the use of the with keyword as an alternative way to reference file objects.
The use of with is considered good practice.

d) Finally, you will need to insert the calls to these functions at the start and end of the
main program block presented earlier.

3. Design and integrate a Personal Identification Number (PIN) security layer into the
system. Feel free to come up with your own requirements but here’s some ideas to get
you started.
 The customer is given three attempts to enter the correct PIN
 A valid PIN is any four-digit number (i.e. a value between 0000 and 9999)
 The initial PIN to enter the system should be read from a file (e.g. atm.txt)
 The menu system should be extended to allow the user to change the PIN

12Before you attempt these activities you will need to download https://github.com/pdst-lccs/lccs-
python/blob/master/Section%206%20-%20Modular%20Programming/Breakout%206.1%20ATM%20System/atm%20-
%20V1%20-%20initial%20solution.py

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 220
4. Global variables are variables that are visible to blocks of code outside the scope of
where they are declared. In this example, the variable balance is global. This means
that the value of balance is visible inside every function which uses the global
keyword.

The use of global variables is generally considered to be poor programming practice.

Remove the need for the global keyword in the system.
Hint: Consider how balance could be passed as an argument into the functions that
need it, and returned out of functions that change it.

5. The system requires the user to enter the lodgement/withdrawal amounts. What are the
drawbacks of this? Can you think of any alternative ways these amounts could be
captured by the system? Design a solution.

How has this specific activity extended your thinking in relation

to the role of functions in designing a user interface?

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 221
Further Activities

Implement additional functionality to support two accounts – a

deposit/savings account and a checking/current account. Some ideas
to get you started are listed below.

 Customers should be able to get the balance of either account separately

 Lodgements can only be made into the deposit account

 Withdrawals can only be made from the current account

 Transfers are only permitted from deposit to current account

Discuss the use of functions to teach concepts such as

abstraction, decomposition and evaluation (CT concepts)

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 222
 Based on what you have learned by completing this activity, use the
code below as an inspiration to develop another activity suitable for
use in the LCCS classroom.

The prompts here may be used as a guide:

 Start off by listing the requirement and any constraints.
 What prior knowledge and skills are required to meet the requirements?
 What initial scaffolding would you provide to students?
 What areas would you ask students to investigate?
 How might students modify any code you provide?
 What extended activities based on the code would ask students to complete?
 With what reflection tasks should students be presented?

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 223
BREAKOUT 6.2: Summing Numbers
Earlier in this chapter we presented a function sumOfN to calculate and return the sum of the
first 𝑛 non-negative integers. The function worked by maintaining a running total as it iterated
over every number up to and including 𝑛. The solution is considered relatively expensive
because it requires 𝑛 iterations (and 𝑛 computations) for 𝑛 numbers.

As a young schoolboy, the German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) is

reputed to have devised a much simpler and more elegant solution that cost just one simple
calculation and did not require the use of iteration. The formula is developed as follows13:

We let 𝑆1 be the sum of the integers from 1 up to n:

𝑆1 = 1+ 2+ 3+ … +(𝑛 − 2) +(𝑛 − 1) +𝑛

We let 𝑆2 be the sum of the integers from n down to 1

𝑆2 = 𝑛+ (𝑛 − 1) + (𝑛 − 2) + … +3 +2 +1

Since both sums are the same we can safely say 𝑆1 = 𝑆2 = 𝑆

The two sums can be added as follows to give 2𝑆

𝑆= 1+ 2+ 3+ … +(𝑛 − 2) +(𝑛 − 1) +𝑛
𝑆= 𝑛+ (𝑛 − 1) + (𝑛 − 2) + … +3 +2 +1
2𝑆 = (𝑛 + 1) + (𝑛 + 1) + (𝑛 + 1) + … +(𝑛 + 1) +(𝑛 + 1) +(𝑛 + 1)

We have (𝑛 + 1) repeated 𝑛 times i.e. 𝑛 × (𝑛 + 1)

The required sum 𝑆 is arrived at by dividing both sides by 2 to give Gauss’s formula:

𝒏 × (𝒏 + 𝟏)
𝑺=
𝟐

13
See https://brilliant.org/wiki/sum-of-n-n2-or-n3/

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 224
Suggested Activities.14
1. A Python implementation of Gauss’s
formula is shown here to the right.

Write two additional functions to find the

sum of the squares and the sum of the
cubes of the first 𝑛 non-negative
integers using the respective formulae
shown below

a) Explain the subtle difference between finding the sum of the first 𝑛 even numbers and
finding the sum of the all even numbers less than 𝑛. Use the two listings below to help.

b) Exploit the pattern 2 + 4 + 6 + 8 + ⋯ = 2(1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ⋯ ) to devise a formula to solve

the above problem. Implement your solution.
c) Define a function that sums all the positive integers from 𝑥 to 𝑦 where both 𝑥 and 𝑦 are
two numbers entered by the end-user. For example, if the end-user entered 8 and 13 the
program would compute and display the result of 8 + 9 + 10 + 11 + 12 + 13.
(Hint: 𝑆𝑢𝑚 𝑜𝑓 8 𝑡𝑜 13 = 𝑆𝑢𝑚 𝑜𝑓 1 𝑡𝑜 13 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑢𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑢𝑚 𝑜𝑓 1 𝑡𝑜 7)

14
Refer to https://betterexplained.com/articles/techniques-for-adding-the-numbers-1-to-100/ for interesting
background reading

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 225
 Reflect. How could the derivation of Gauss’s formula and/or the
illustrations shown below be used explain core computational thinking
concepts in the LCCS classroom?

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 226
Further Activities
1. Write a program to sum the first n odd numbers
(Write another program to sum all the odd numbers up to n).
1 1
2. The reciprocal of a number 𝑥 is denoted by e.g. is the reciprocal of 5.
𝑥 5

Define a function to sum the reciprocal of the first 10 positive integers i.e.
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
+ + + + + + + + +
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

3. Implement a function that finds an approximation for 𝜋 using the formula provided
4 4 4 4 4
𝜋 =4− + − + − +⋯
3 5 7 9 11

4. Write a program that uses the formula shown to estimate a value for Euler’s constant, 𝑒

Explain how recursion could be used to complete any of the tasks

covered in this section

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 227
BREAKOUT 6.3: Turtle Graphics and Functions – PART I

Consider the short program below to draw a square of 100 units

Suggested Activities
1. Key in (or copy+paste from GitHub) the code and run with it. Investigate what happens
when you change the values (i.e. 100 and 90). What conclusions about the meanings of
these values can you make?

2. Implement a function called drawSquare and

modify the above code to use it.

3. Modify drawSquare so that it accepts the

square’s dimension as a parameter

4. The implementation of drawSquare shown here exploits the fact that a square is a
special kind of rectangle (abstraction). Implement drawRectangle.

5. Design and implement a function to draw a n-sided polygon. (Hint: study the three
function definitions shown carefully – look for patterns and generalise.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 228
BREAKOUT 6.3: Turtle Graphics and Functions – PART II

Study the two listings below carefully and answer the questions that follow.

Listing A Listing B

Compare and contrast the two listings. Which do you think is

better and why? Describe any limitations of your preferred
listing and explain how these might be overcome.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 229
Suggested Activities

1. Download the code for Listing B, predict what it does and run it. What does the code do?

2. Modify the function drawAngle to accept

the lengths of each angle arm as shown in
the function header here.

3. Modify the function setPenPosition to

accept the (x,y) co-ordinates as shown in
the function header here.

4. Modify the implementation of drawAngle so that it accepts the co-ordinates (as well as
the angle size and arm lengths) of the position at which to place the angle.

5. Once you have the previous task complete you should evaluate the design decision to
change the definition of drawAngle.
What are the wider implications to the rest of a program of changing a function header?

6. Investigate whether Python would allow the following two function definitions in the same
program. Would this be a useful feature?

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 230
 Reflection.
What were your main thoughts as you engaged with this activity?

Describe any connections this activity allowed you to make between

computational thinking and functions.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 231
Further Activities
Code refactoring is the process of restructuring computer code without changing its existing
functionality. Code is usually refactored in order to improve readability and maintainability.

The functions defined in the code below each draw a corresponding shape shown to the
right. Each function relies on the turtle being oriented to the right (i.e. in an eastward
direction) in order to work properly. This is achieved with the call setheading(0).

1. The task here is to look for a common pattern in the shape (or code) and exploit this
pattern to refactor the code without changing any functionality.
Hint: You will need to write a separate function that just draws the part of the shape that is
common to all four shapes.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 232
2. Read the code below carefully and key it in.
a) Write the necessary code to call the functions defined so that each of the three shapes
shown to the right are drawn - all lines are 50 units in length.

b) Identify any repeating patterns in the above shapes and exploit this pattern to refactor
the code without changing any functionality.
c) Define three functions draw2, draw3 and draw9 in terms of the functions defined in the
above code to display the digits as illustrated below.

draw2 draw3 draw9

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 233
BREAKOUT 6.4: Using check digits to verify codes

A check digit a number whose purpose is to trap

potential errors made by humans when manually
entering a code (e.g. barcodes, ISBNs) to a
system. It consists of a single digit – usually the
rightmost digit - whose value is computed from
the other digits in the number. The check digit of
the barcode shown here to the right is 4 EAN-8 format barcode

Barcode check digit verification algorithms generally work by calculating a total using the
formula shown below. If the total is evenly divisible by 10 then the check digit is deemed to
be valid.

𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 = (𝑠𝑢𝑚 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠) + 3 × (𝑠𝑢𝑚 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑑𝑑 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠)

The digits are read from right to left – so the rightmost digit is always taken to be the first
even-positioned digit. The following table shows the positions and the corresponding digit for
the barcode shown at the top of the page.

Digit Positon 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Digit 4 5 2 3 3 8 5 6

The check digit of this barcode number can be verified as follows:

1. Add all the digits in the even-numbered

4 + 2 + 3 + 5 = 14
positions (zeroth, second, fourth etc.)

2. Add the digits in the odd-numbered

positions (first, third, fifth, etc.) together 3 × (5 + 3 + 8 + 6) = 3 × 22 = 66
and multiply by three.

3. Add the two sub-totals. 14 + 66 = 80

4. Take the remainder of the total divided

70%10 = 0
by 10 (modulo operation)

The remainder after dividing by ten is zero (i.e.70 ≡ 0 (𝑀𝑜𝑑 10)). Therefore, the check digit
is correct.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 234
The European Article Number or EAN (aka International Article Number) is a worldwide
standard that describes the format for numbers that appear under the barcodes used to
identify retail products. Two of the most commonly used EAN standards are the eight digit
EAN-8 and thirteen digit EAN-13 – illustrated below.

Barcode using EAN-8 Barcode using EAN-13

Use the algorithm described on the previous page to verify that

both of the above barcodes are valid

Outline any programming strategies you could use to extract the

even/odd digits as part of a Python implementation of the check
digit verification algorithm?

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 235
Developing an algorithm to extract digit from a number
The three listings below extract the individual digits from any two- digit, three- digit and four-
digit number respectively

In all of these examples the rightmost digit is always stored in the variable d1.
The value is the remainder after dividing whatever number was entered by 10 (e.g.
83 % 10 = 3, 835 % 10 = 5 etc.).

Sample Input: 83
Output: 3 8

In the above example the leftmost digit is extracted by dividing by 10 (i.e. 83// 10 = 8). This
is stored in the variable d2.

Sample Input: 835

Output: 5 3 8

Here, the middle digit is extracted in two steps – first, divide by 10 to leave the first two digits
(i.e. 835// 10 = 83) and then remainder 10 (i.e. 83 % 10 = 3).
This is stored in the variable d2.

The leftmost digit is extracted by dividing by 100 (e.g. 835// 100 = 8). This is stored in the
variable d3. (Note that taking the remainder 10 of does not affect the value)

In the next (and final) example we examine the code to extract the individual digits of any
four-digit number - d4, d3, d2 and d1.

Sample Input: 8352

Output: 2 5 3 8

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 236
Let’s look at the process for extracting the second digit in from the right, d2. The sample
input is 8352 and we wish to extract the 5. The procedure is to divide by 10 – this gives 835 -
and then use remainder 10 on this to extract the final digit.

A similar procedure can be used to extract the third digit in from the right (d3) i.e. extract the
3 from 8352. This time we divide by 100 – this gives 83 - and then use remainder 10 to
extract the final digit.

Finally the leftmost digit, d4, can be extracted simply by dividing by 1000 i.e. 8352//1000 =
8. Applying remainder 10 to this does not change the value.

Describe any patterns you recognise emerging from the three

examples above?

Devise an algorithm to extract the ith digit from any number n.

(Take the rightmost digit to be at position 0.) Implement your
solution in a Python function – header defined as follows:

Explain how the remainder (modulus) operator could be used to

ensure a randomly generated number is within a specific range

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 237
Suggested Activities
These activities are based on the short program below which implements an algorithm to
validate an EAN-8 barcode number

1. Key in (or copy+paste from GitHub) the above code and make sure it runs without any
syntax errors.
2. Test the program with a range of valid and invalid EANs
3. Take a close look at the function extractDigit. What would happen if an out of range
index was passed into it?
For example what would happen if the following calls were made to the function -
extractDigit(-1, 869) or extractDigit(3, 869)?
4. Suggest ways by which any problem(s) identified in the previous question could be fixed
and discuss whether any of these solutions need to be implemented.
5. Extend the code with a function to check the validity of an EAN-13 number
6. Implement a function isValidEAN that works for both EAN-8 and EAN-13 numbers.
Hint you will need to do a range test to determine the size of the number
7. Modify the code so that it could work using string representation of the EAN (as opposed
to a numeric representation).
Test your program with the call: print(isValidEAN8("53912343"))
8. Design (and implement) a program to generate a check digit for an EAN-13 barcode (i.e.
given the first 12 digits compute the 13th)
9. Write a recursive function to sum the individual digits of a number

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 238
 Reflection.
Describe your experience of engaging with the tasks in this activity.
Consider the following prompts for a learner’s perspective

When I saw a problem for the first time what was my thinking?
What computational thinking skills, if any, did I employ?
What worked well for me? What didn’t work so well?
Were there any limitations to any of my solutions?
What programming skills did I improve/learn?

Looking back at the tasks in this activity (as a teacher) what

programming constructs would it be necessary for students to
understand before engaging in a similar task.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 239
Further Activities (ISBNs and Credit Cards)
1. An International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a unique number used to identify
books worldwide. Before 2007 ISBNs were made up of 10 digits and this was extended
to 13 digits from 1 January 2007. The former standard is known as ISBN-10 and the
latter is known as ISBN-13.

Use the information provided below to derive and implement an

algorithm to validate any ISBN-10

ISBN-10: 1-350-05711-8
𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑐𝑘𝑠𝑢𝑚 = (1 × 10) + (3 × 9) + (5 × 8) + (0 × 7) + (0 × 6) + (5 × 5) + (7 × 4) + (1 × 3) + (1 × 2) + (8 × 1)
𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑐𝑘𝑠𝑢𝑚 % 11 must be zero

2. Just like barcodes and ISBNs, credit card numbers contain several pieces of information
for performing validity tests. For example, Visa card numbers are always 16 digits long
and always begin with 4. A valid Visa card number also passes a digit-sum test known
as the Luhn checksum algorithm. Luhn's algorithm states that if you sum the digits of the
number in a certain way, the total sum must be a multiple of 10 for a valid Visa number.

Systems that accept credit cards perform a Luhn test before contacting the credit card
company for final verification. This lets the company weed out many fake or incorrect credit
card numbers.

The algorithm for summing the digits is the following. For digits at even indexes (the 0th digit,
2nd digit, etc.), simply add that digit to the cumulative sum. For digits at odd indexes (index
1, 3, etc.), double the digit's value, then if that doubled value is more than 10, add its digits
together to make a number that is smaller than 10, then add this result into the sum.

Use the information provided below to derive and implement Luhn’s

algorithm to validate any credit card

Credit Card Number: 4408 0412 3456 7893

𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑐𝑘𝑠𝑢𝑚 = (8) + 4 + (0) + 8 + (0) + 4 + (2) + 2 + (6) + 4 + (1 + 0) + 6 + (1 + 4) + 8 + (1 + 8) + 3
𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑐𝑘𝑠𝑢𝑚 % 10 must be zero

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 240
NOTES

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 241
 Section 7

Dictionaries

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 242
Introduction
In plain English a dictionary is something that is used to find the meaning or translation of a
word. In Python a dictionary is a data structure which can be used to store values that can
be looked up and retrieved using a unique identifier known as a key.

Python dictionaries are very similar to Python lists but, as we will soon see, there are some
important differences.

Like lists, dictionaries are useful because they provide a means by which a collection of data
can be manipulated using a single variable. Each element in a dictionary consists of two
parts – a key, which must be unique, and an associated value. These are commonly
referred to as key-value pairs (and also name-value pairs).

The graphic on the left below depicts the mapping between keys and their associated
values. This can be contrasted with the graphic on the right which depicts a Python list of
length N.

A dictionary with N elements. Each element A list with N elements. Each element is
is referenced by a unique key which is referenced by a zero based positional
usually a string or an integer offset known as an index

Recall from Chapter 4 that lists are ordered data structures. This means that Python
maintains the relative ordering of every element in a list. Because the list index is a
positional offset position, operations such as slicing and concatenation make sense for lists.

Dictionaries on the other hand are unordered data structures. Python does not maintain the
order of dictionary elements. This is because elements are retrieved using a key (as
opposed to an index). There is no guarantee that dictionary elements are maintained in the

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 243
same order as they were created. Consequently, operations that depend on order such as
slicing and concatenation are not supported for dictionaries.

KEY POINT: A dictionary can be thought of as an unordered list which uses a

key to retrieve elements instead of an index.

Dictionaries are useful for storing a list of values when the values can be identified by some
string or integer (i.e. the key). Keys must be unique and can be of any immutable datatype
(e.g. string, integer) – and values can be of any datatype (simple or compound).

Dictionary Definitions – some examples

The examples below are all given in the form of assignment statements in which a dictionary
appears to the right of the assignment operator and the variable to which the dictionary is
being assigned appears on the left.

Example 1
In this first example, we define a dictionary called glossary. The dictionary shown below
contains four elements and each element is made up of two parts – a key and a value –
delimited by a colon. The name of the first element in this dictionary is Analyse and the
value of this element is to study or examine something in detail.

In this dictionary each individual word is the key. The key can be used to lookup the value
- in this case the meaning of the word.

Note that in each of the examples in this section the dictionary data is enclosed by curly
braces. The opening brace, ({), tells Python that this is the start of a dictionary definition and
the closing brace, (}), signals the end of the dictionary definition.

KEY POINT: The elements of a dictionary are enclosed by curly braces; each
element in a dictionary is a key-value pair; the key and the value must be
separated by a colon.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 244
Example 2
In this example the dictionary comprises six
elements. Note that dictionary elements are
separated by commas and also that a comma is
allowed at the end of the last element.

The individual elements provide a mapping from a

The above dictionary could be used
unique country name (e.g. Ireland) to a capital city to look up a capital city for a given
(e.g. Dublin). country.

As was the case with the last example the datatype of the names and values are all strings
and the elements are all enclosed in curly braces.

KEY POINT: No two dictionary elements can have the same key i.e. the keys
must be unique. Values however, can be duplicated.

Example3
Here, the dictionary numbers can be used
to lookup the Irish word for each of the
numbers from one to ten.

In this example, the datatype of the keys

are all integers and the datatype of the
corresponding values are all string.

KEY POINT: The datatype of a dictionary key must be immutable (e.g. string,
integer) but values can be of any datatype (including lists and other
dictionaries).

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 245
Example 4
This example defines a dictionary called
capacity which stores the maximum
number of people that seven well known
sports stadia can safely accommodate.

Note in this case the datatype of the keys is

string and the datatype of the values is This dictionary could be used to look up the
integer. capacity of a given stadium.

Example 5
In examples 1-4 the keys and values store the same kind of information i.e.
- in example 1 the key is a word and the lookup value is the meaning of that word
- in example 2 the key is a country and the values is its capital
- in example 3 the key is a number and the value is its Irish translation
- in example 4 the key is the name of a stadium and the value is its capacity

It is quite common for keys to be unrelated to one another. Notice how in the following
examples the keys all refer to different things and also the mixture of datatypes in the values.

nctBooking is a dictionary used to

This dictionary is used to hold student details.
store the booking details for a National
Note the mixture of datatypes in the values.
Car Test (NCT)

Dictionaries like these two are useful for representing structured data i.e. data that is
organised in a tabular format in such a manner that values can be identified by unique
names (e.g. field names in a database, column headers in a spreadsheet/csv file)
It is worth noting that dictionaries are referred to as records/structures in other programming
languages.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 246
Creating Dictionaries - syntax
Python supports several different syntaxes for creating dictionaries – so far we have looked
at just one i.e. enclosed in curly braces with key-value pairs delimited by colons and
separated by commas. The general form of this syntax is shown below.

Note the use of:

- curly braces to enclose the dictionary elements
- the colon to delimit the key-value pairs and
- the comma to separate elements

Another way to create dictionaries is to use the built-in function, dict. There are several
variations on the use of dict but for the sake of brevity we will look at just two.

In this first variation (shown below) the dict function is used to create a dictionary called
abbr1 with three key-value pairs. The general form of this syntax is shown to the right. Note
the similarity to the syntax of the earlier examples – basically, this syntax just passes the
entire dictionary (including the curly braces) as an argument into the dict function.

In this next example three keyword arguments are passed into dict. Each argument is
assigned an associated value. This syntax requires that each key is a valid Python identifier
i.e. it cannot begin with a digit, must be made up of alphanumeric characters or underscore
etc. Note the absence of curly braces in this syntax.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 247
When created in this way, the datatype of the dictionary keys is always a string.

The dictionaries resulting from both examples, abbr1 and abbr2 are identical i.e.

Empty Dictionaries
In practice data is usually not hardcoded into programs as illustrated in the examples used
thus far. Rather, data typically enters a running program from some external source such as
the end-user, file(s) or a database. In such cases it can be useful to start off with an empty
dictionary. The three statements below all define an empty dictionary called d.

As a program runs, data can be added to, or removed from the dictionary in accordance with
the needs of the underlying computational model.

What have you learned about dictionaries from the preceding

examples?

What one question about dictionaries would you like to have

answered right now?

Define a dictionary of your choice to contain five elements.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 248
Indexing Dictionaries
Recall from earlier that indexing is a technique used to access/retrieve the elements of
strings (section 3) and lists (section 4). Dictionary values can also be indexed but, unlike
strings and lists which both use a zero based integer as a positional offset to access
elements, dictionaries use the key as the index.

Let’s say we have a dictionary called d defined with key-value pairs depicted as shown here.

The code below displays the three values stored in the above dictionary:

Oh My God!
Laugh out Loud
In My Humble Opinion
Dictionary values are accessed by
The output displayed by the code
using the keys as the index

The general syntax to access elements of a dictionary is:

where, dict-name is the name of the dictionary and key is the lookup value to use in
order to retrieve the required element. Note that the key may be a string or an integer.

KEY POINT: Dictionary values are accessed by using their key as the index
(i.e. in square brackets)

The example below demonstrates that dictionary values can be accessed in any order. The
output of each print statement is shown to the right.

In My Humble Opinion
Oh My God!
Laugh out Loud

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 249
 SYNTAX CHECK #1:
Attempts to access a dictionary using a key that does not exist result in
Python displaying a KeyError

This error is demonstrated by the code

shown here to the right.

The last line (highlighted in red) causes

the Python interpreter to display the
KeyError shown below.

The problem is that Python cannot find a key entry with the name LOLL in dictionary d and
the probable cause is a typing error made by the programmer.

SYNTAX CHECK #2:

Key names are case sensitive so

the listing below will also result in a
KeyError. The error message is
shown below.

Explain the possible causes for a KeyError in Python.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 250
Keys can be variables
It is useful to be aware that the index used to lookup a dictionary value can be stored in a
variable. Consider the code below.

Line 7 declares a variable called key and assigns the string OMG to it. Line 8 uses the
contents of key as the index to retrieve its corresponding value from the dictionary d. The
result of the lookup is assigned to the variable value. Finally, line 9 causes the contents of
value to be displayed.

SYNTAX CHECK #3:

If Python does not recognise the identifier used to lookup a dictionary it
will display a NameError.

Experiment!
Key in (or copy+paste from GitHub) the code below and explain why both
result in a NameError when they are run.

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The code below defines a dictionary called capitals and prompts the user to enter one of
the six nation countries.

If the user enters one of the country names that is stored as a key in the dictionary, the
program will display the corresponding capital city. The contents of the variable country is
used as the key to lookup the dictionary capitals.

Experiment!
What happens when the user enters the name of a country that is not in
the dictionary countries? Explain.

Experiment!
What is the purpose of the variable i in the code below?
Change the for loop to for i in range(10): and explain what happens

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Operations to access values
Indexing is not the only technique that can be used to retrieve dictionary values. In fact,
Python dictionaries support a number of operations that can be used for this purpose - two of
these are get and pop

This call returns the value in the dictionary that corresponds to key. If the key
get(key) does not exist the call returns None (unless a default value has been
specified for the key). Therefore, this command never results in a KeyError.

This call returns the value in the dictionary that corresponds to key. If the
pop(key) value is found the element is removed from the dictionary. Otherwise the call
results in a KeyError.

The use of get is highlighted in the code listing shown here.

In the first sample run the user
enters Maths and the value H4 is
returned and assigned to
result.

In the second sample run, the

call to get returns None as the
key entered by the user (i.e. sdf)
is not found.

Sample Run 1

Sample Run 2

Notice from both sample runs that the contents of the dictionary grades remain unchanged
after the call to get.

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This can be contrasted with the use of pop which removes the element from the dictionary
as shown here.

When the key is found its value is returned and the element is deleted from the dictionary.

When the key is not found Python raises a KeyError

One way of avoiding this type of error is to use the in keyword to test the key for
membership before attempting the call to pop. This is exemplified below.

This time when a key which does not exist is entered, a meaningful message is displayed
and the dictionary is left unaltered.

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Adding, Changing, and Deleting Dictionary Elements
The technique of indexing can be used to add, change and delete elements. These
operations are now discussed in turn

Adding new elements to a dictionary

New elements are added to a dictionary
when a key that does not already exist
is used as the index in an assignment
statement.
Line 7 in the code shown adds a new
(fourth) element to the dictionary, d.

The output displayed is:

The general syntax for adding elements to a dictionary is:

where, dict-name is the name of the dictionary and key and value specify the key-
value pair of the new element to add.

Get Coding!
Add the following key-value pairs to the dictionary, d defined above
"MUA" : "Make Up Artist"
"SWAG" : "Stuff We All Get"
"WTP" : "What's the plan"

Experiment!
What happens when you try and add a new value to a dictionary using a key
that already exists?

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Building up a simple empty dictionary
Imagine we were asked to write a simple program for Twitter that would build up a dictionary
to store information entered about a person/user. Specifically, let’s say we were asked to
build up, and populate a dictionary with the following structure:

The keys (i.e. handle, name, tweets etc.) are shown on the left hand side and the
corresponding values on the right will be entered by the end-user when the following
program is run.

Lines 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14 all assign whatever value the user enters for the specified key into
the dictionary.

Note that decisions about what information a system should sore are usually made (by the
system analysts and designers) before the programmer(s) begin coding. In this case, it was
decided to store the person’s handle and name as well as the number of tweets they sent,
the number of people they are following and the number of followers they have.

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The next example builds up a dictionary of student results. The results are stored as key-
value pairs made up of a subject name and a corresponding mark.

In this first version of the program the dictionary stores the student name and one result. A
sample run is shown here to the right

Notice on line 8 that the identifier subject is not enclosed in quotes. This is how the name
of the subject entered by the end-user becomes the key for this dictionary entry.

The obvious limitation of the above program is that it only works for one subject. In this next
version we use a while loop to allow multiple subjects to be entered and stored in the
dictionary.

A sample run of this code (version 2a) shows results for Irish and Maths being entered and
stored in the dictionary.

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The next block of code, version 2b is logically equivalent to version 2a i.e. if they are given
the same input they will both produce the same output.

Notice however, the subtle difference between the while loops in the two versions.

In version 2a the break statement causes the loop to terminate. This happens whenever the
user presses return for the subject name.

In version 2b the user is prompted to enter the subject name before entering the while loop
for the first time, and then again at the end of each execution of the loop body. Whenever
the user enters an empty subject name (by pressing return) the loop guard i.e. subject! =
"" is evaluated to False and the loop terminates.

In situations such as this – when there is a choice between more than one logically
equivalent solution to the same problem – the decision as to which implementation to use
usually rests with the programmer and very often boils down to a matter of personal
programming style.

Modify the code in either of the previous two example (i.e. version 2a or 2b) so
that the dictionary stores the results of one single subject for multiple
students. A sample run of the desired program is shown below.

The solution is available by clicking here:

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Changing dictionary values
The simplest way to change (update) dictionary values is to use the assignment statement.
Line 7 in the code below illustrates how the dictionary value for key entry LOL could be
changed from Laugh out Loud to League of Legends.

The expression on the right hand

side of the assignment operator (‘=’)
in line 7 is assigned as the new value
for the element in d that is matched
to the key ‘LOL’.

The output displayed is:

Experiment!
What happens when you try to change a value using a key that does
not exist (e.g. typo error in key)?

Experiment!
Key in (or copy+paste from GitHub) the code below and use the output
to explain what the update command used in lines 12 and 13 does.

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Deleting dictionary elements
Dictionary elements can be deleted using the del keyword.
The use of del is exemplified on line 7 below which removes the entry indexed by LOL from
the dictionary.

The effect is to delete the second element, and in doing so, reduce the number of elements
in the dictionary from three to two. The output displayed is:

The general syntax to delete a dictionary element is:

where, dict-name is the name of the dictionary and key is the lookup value to use in
locating the element to delete. If the key is not found its Python raises a KeyError

If del is used on a dictionary without specifying an index, the dictionary reference is

removed from the program’s namespace. The effect of the following statement is to delete
the variable represented by dict-name from the program.

Finally, the clear command deletes all elements from a dictionary. The resulting dictionary
is left empty.

Get Coding!
Write code to remove all the elements from the dictionary, d defined above

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 Experiment!
What is the relationship between d1 and d2 at the end of this program?

Explain what the clear command used on line 10 does.

Experiment!
What is the relationship between d1 and d2 at the end of this program?

Explain what the del command used in line 11 does.

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 Experiment!
Explain what happens when you run the following code.

Experiment!
Explain what happens when you run the following code.

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 Programming Exercises 7.115
1. Study the dictionary definition shown in part b) carefully and answer the questions that
follow:
a) What is the name of the dictionary?

b) Identify the keys and values in the dictionary

Keys:

Values:

c) Suggest name for two additional key-value pairs that could be added to car

d) Provide an alternative definition for car

using the dict function by completing the
code inside the red box shown.

e) Predict what output would be generated by each of the following print statements.
(Note: some of these statements generate an error.)
(i) print(car['make'])
(ii) print(car[model])
(iii) print(car['miles'])
(iv) print(car['colour'][0])
(v) print(car['diesel'][0])
(vi) print(car['reg'][4:5])

15
See Appendix G for solutions

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 f) Assume that currentYear is a variable that has been assigned the value of the
current year (e.g. currentYear = 2018). What do you think the statement
print(car['kms']/(currentYear - car['year']) would output?

g) What information does this output convey to the end user?

h) Now create a dictionary definition for car so that the print statements shown below
can run without errors. Use the space provided to record the actual output.
(i) print(car['make'])
(ii) print(car['model'])
(iii) print(car['kms'])
(iv) print(car['colour'][0])
(v) print(car['diesel'])
(vi) print(car['reg'][4:5])
(vii) currentYear = 2018
print(car['kms']/(currentYear - car['year']))

What have you learned about dictionaries by completing this

exercise?

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2. The dictionary colours contains a mapping of five colours in English to Irish. Study the
definition carefully (ignoring the deliberate translation errors for the moment) and answer
the following questions.

a) Write an alternative definition for colours in the space provide on the right.
(Hint: use the dict function.)

b) Predict what happens when the following lines of code are added (individually)
(Hint: None of these statements generate a syntax error.)

(i) colours['yellow'] = 'buí'

(ii) colours['pink'] = 'bán agus dearg'

(iii) colours['green'] = 'glas'

(iv) colours['blu'] = 'gorm'

(v) colours.update(blue='gorm')

(vi) colours.update(green='gorm', blue='dubh')

(vii) del colours['white']

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 c) In each of the following blocks of code line 9 reads a value from the end-user and line
11 attempts to use that value as a key to lookup the dictionary, colours. The idea is
to assign the translated colour to the variable, translation.

Each block illustrates a different technique used to retrieve a value from a dictionary.

A. Indexing

B. get

C. pop

For each block (i.e. A, B and C) predict the value of translation given the inputs of white
and orange for colour (six separate runs).

white orange

A.

B.

C.

d) Key in (or copy+paste from GitHub) the code and run it to check all the predictions you
made as part of this exercise.

Explain the differences between indexing, get and pop as

techniques to retrieve values from a dictionary.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 266
3. Write a program that defines a dictionary called book. The keys should be isbn, title
and author. You should make up your own values.

Now add a fourth key-value pair to your dictionary.

4. The code below prompts the end user to enter a month (month_name) and then calls a
function to return the number of days in that month to the variable numDays which is
then displayed.

Define a dictionary called days so that the following implementation of daysInMonth can
be used instead of the one shown above. The two programs will be logically equivalent.

Which of the two implementations do you think is better and why?

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Iterating over dictionaries
Occasionally the need arises to write code to perform some processing on each individual
dictionary element. Such situations can be dealt with by traversing (or iterating over) the
dictionary. A simple example would be to display every key and/or value in a separate
formatted message. Let’s say we have a dictionary defined as follows (both definitions are
equivalent):

Python supports a small number of commands which can be used in conjunction with a for
loop to iterate over the elements of a dictionary. These are summarised in the table below.

keys() This call returns a list of all the keys in a dictionary

values() This call returns a list of all the values in a dictionary

items() This call returns a list of all the key-value pairs in a dictionary
[Technically keys(), values() and items() actually return what Python calls a view object. For
the purpose of this manual it is fair to think of view objects and lists as equivalent.]

The use of keys() is illustrated below – the output is shown on the right. Note that, on each
iteration of the loop, the variable k takes on (i.e. is assigned) the value of the next key in the
list of keys returned by the call to results.keys()

The pattern is so common that the use of keys() can be

ommited entirely. Both loops are logically equivalent.

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The built-in function sorted can be used to sort the keys – again the output is displayed on
the right:

Since dictionaries are unordered the use of sorted

can have no effect on the internal ordering of the
dictionary elements.

The following code exemplifies the use of values() to iterate over the individual values held
in the results dictionary. This time the variable v takes on (i.e. is assigned) the next value
in the list of values returned by the call to results.values()

The code to the right shows how to

calculate the mean value by:
 adding up all the values
 storing their sum in total and
 dividing by the number of values Code to calculate the mean of a set of values.
(note the use of the len built in The output generated is:

function.

In typical Python fashion there’s usually simpler solution! In this case, the same result could
have been achieved by importing and using the mean function as follows:

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Finally, the use of items to iterate over and display the keys and values in the results
dictionary is illustrated in the code below:

Notice that there are two variables – k and v – in the for loop. The items function actually
returns a list of pairs known as tuples16. There is a one-to-one correspondence between the
tuples and the key-value pairs in the dictionary. On each iteration of the for loop the
variable k takes on the first element of the tuple and the variable v takes on the second.

Once again we can use the sorted function to sort the list of items. The following code
shows how the dictionary can be sorted on its keys.

Finally, the code to sort the dictionary by values is shown below. This code is shown for
completeness only and an explanation is beyond the scope of this manual.

16
A tuple is another Python datatype. Tuples behave very like lists except that their elements cannot be
changed i.e. they are immutable sequences. For more information on tuples see the official Python reference
at https://docs.python.org/3.6/library/stdtypes.html#tuple

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Dictionaries and Lists.
By this stage it should be evident that dictionaries and lists are conceptually very similar data
structures. The main similarities are:

- Both are compound datatypes. This means that they can be used to store (and
retrieve) multiple values using a single variable. (Compound datatypes can be contrasted
with simple datatypes such as, integer, float and Boolean. Variables of these simple
types can only store a single value at any one time.
- Both are mutable meaning that they can grow and shrink dynamically as new elements
are added and old elements are deleted.
- Both support indexing to access elements. However, the semantics of how exactly lists
and dictionaries use indexing is perhaps the greatest distinguishing feature between the
two data structures. This semantics is described as follows.

Lists are indexed using a zero-based positional offset. Dictionaries are indexed using a
key. The datatype of a list index must be integer whereas, with dictionaries the datatype of
the index must match the datatype of the key in the dictionary.

KEY POINT: Dictionary values are retrieved using a key (and not an offset
position as used by lists).

Another significant difference between lists and dictionaries is that lists are ordered
collections whereas dictionaries are not. Dictionary values are mapped by a key and
consequently can exist anywhere in the dictionary. List values, on the other hand exists at a
fixed position defined by its index.

The main implication of this is that certain list operations that depend on ordering (e.g.
slicing, concatenation, append, insert and remove) have no meaning for dictionaries.
Errors which we associate with lists resulting from using an out of range index (i.e.
IndexError) also have no meaning for dictionaries (they have their own types of errors).

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A word on datatypes and usage notes
Lists and dictionaries are among the most powerful data structures offered by Python and
the main reason for this lies in their flexibility – especially when it comes to the wide range
and type of values that they can be used to store. The values stored in lists and dictionaries
can be of any datatype – there are effectively no restrictions.

KEY POINT: There are virtually no limitations to what can be stored in lists
and dictionaries.

Before exploring this point in any more detail it is worth looking at the following graphic which
classifies Python datatypes into two broad groups – simple and compound (aka composite).

Note that Python contains many more datatype than those illustrated and also that the
classification is for illustrative purposes only17. A simple datatype can be thought of as
atomic in the sense that values cannot be sub-divided into further sub-types, whereas a
compound datatype can contain values which themselves can be either simple or
compound.

In terms of the types of values that lists and dictionaries can store, we have a very broad
spectrum. At one end of this spectrum values can be uniform and simple, while at the other
end at the other end it is possible for elements to be of different datatypes and also
compound.

17
Python represents everything as objects so, strictly speaking, it has no simple datatypes.

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 BREAKOUT ACTIVITIES (Dictionaries)

BREAKOUT 7.1: Frequency Counters

1. Key in (or copy+paste from GitHub) the following code and run it a number of times
before attempting the questions and activities that follow:

a) Describe what the program does.

b) Insert the line print(char) between lines 3 and 4 (indented) and run the program
again. Use your observations to state the purpose of char.

c) What type of data structure is chars?

d) What information do the key-value pairs hold in chars?

The chars keys are:

The chars values are:

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 273
 e) Replace lines 4-7 of the original program with the following single line of code.
Make sure it is indented. Run the program again and use the space below to note
any changes in the way it behaves.

a) Browse to the official reference for the get dictionary operation and describe what
it does in the context of the previous question.
https://docs.python.org/3.6/library/stdtypes.html#mapping-types-dict

g) Modify the program so that it only maintains a count of each vowel in the input
sentence. A sample run is shown below.
Hint: As each character is being processed check whether it is a vowel or not; if
the character is a vowel add it to the dictionary and update the counter.

h) Modify the program so that it maintains total count of vowels and consonants.
Hint: The dictionary needs only two keys – vowels and consonants.
A sample run would look like this:

i) Use the structure and patterns contained in the original program to develop a
program that counts the number of occurrences of words in a piece of text. A
sample run of the desired program is shown below.

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 j) Add the following four lines of code to the end of the original program (no
indentation) and run it. Use the space provided below to describe what the code
does.

b) Experiment! What happens if there are more than one most frequently occurring
letters? How might the code be altered to display all the most frequently occurring
letters?

k) The code below shows a logically equivalent solution to that shown in part j)
above. Which solution do you prefer and why? How might the code be altered to
overcome the limitation highlighted in the last question?

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 275
2. The short program prompts the end-use to enter a sentence and then displays the
frequency count of every word in the sentence. A sample run of the program yields the
following:

Key the program in and run it until you are satisfied you understand what it does.

Now attempt the following. (The knowledge gained from completing part 1 of this exercise
should be helpful)

a) Predict the output of the above program for the following sentences

Have a very merry Christmas and a very very merry New Year

Expected Output:

happy birthday dear Mary happy birthday to you

Expected Output:

Ho ho ho!

Expected Output:

b) Describe the influence of case and punctuation on the way the program works.

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 c) Suggest ways by which the limitations caused by case and punctuation marks in
the program could be overcome.

d) Design and implement a solution to your suggestion from the previous question.

e) Replace lines 6-9 with a single statement that is logically equivalent i.e. each
word encountered (i.e. the dictionary value) has one added to its frequency
counter if the word already exists in the dictionary; otherwise the word is added
to the dictionary with an initial frequency count set to 1.

f) Modify the program so that it performs the same word frequency analysis on text
read from a .txt file (as opposed to a single sentence typed in by the user).

g) Change this program so that it ignores words of length greater than 3.

h) Use the program to calculate the average word length in the entire text.

i) Suggest further activities that could be based on this example.

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 277
3. We saw in chapter 5 (breakout activity 5.1) how the program shown here could be used
to display a bar chart with the ten most frequently occurring words from a piece of text
contained in a text file called book.txt.

The task here is to provide an alternative implementation of the above program that
incorporates the use of dictionaries.

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NOTES:

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 Appendices

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 280
Appendix A: Python Keywords

False break else if not while

None class except import for with
True continue finally in pass yield
and def for is raise
as del from lambda return
assert elif global nonlocal try
Python 3.6.2 keywords

Appendix B: Python Built-in Functions

See https://docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html

abs() dict() help() min() setattr()

all() dir() hex() next() slice()

any() divmod() id() object() sorted()

ascii() enumerate() input() oct() staticmethod()

bin() eval() int() open() str()

bool() exec() isinstance() ord() sum()

bytearray() filter() issubclass() pow() super()

bytes() float() iter() print() tuple()

callable() format() len() property() type()

chr() frozenset() list() range() vars()

classmethod() getattr() locals() repr() zip()

compile() globals() map() reversed()

complex() hasattr() max() round()

delattr() hash() memoryview() set()

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Appendix C: Python Assignment Operators

Appendix D: Python Arithmetic Operators

Appendix E: Python Relational Operators

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Appendix F: Truth Tables for not, and, and or

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 283
Appendix G: Sample Solutions to Selected Problems

Programming Exercise/ Breakout Activity Solution

Breakout 1.2 Games Programming with pygame (chequer
board)

Breakout 2.1 Turtle Graphics – Question 3 (increase angle

size)

Breakout 2.1 Turtle Graphics – Question 4 (pseudo-code)

Breakout 2.1 Turtle Graphics – Question 5 (random walk)

Breakout 2.2 Automated Teller Machine (ATM) Menu

System

Breakout 2.3 Data Processing (average height) – Question

6

Programming Exercise 3.1 – Question 1 (match index

operation to the correct output)

Programming Exercise 3.2 – Caesar cipher

Programming Exercise 3.3 (match string method to the

correct output)

Breakout 3.1 School Survey Web Page – Question 2

Breakout 3.2 RSS Feed Analysis – Questions 2, 4 and 6

Breakout 4.1 Random Sentence Generator (partial

solution)

Breakout 4.2 Data Processing (heights) – Question 3

Programming Exercise 5.1 (re-order the code)

Breakout 5.1 Task Development (some ideas for the

classroom)

Breakout 5.2 Automated Teller Machine (ATM) Menu

System (partial solution)

Programming Exercise 5.2 (for loops) – Question 3

(chequer board)

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 Programming Exercise/ Breakout Activity Solution

Programming Exercise 6.1 (Q1 - list factors)

Programming Exercise 6.1 (Q2 - greatest common divisor)

Programming Exercise 6.1 (Q3 - valid date)

Programming Exercise 6.1 (Q4 - ordinal numbers)

Programming Exercise 6.1 (Q5 - long date)

Programming Exercise 6.1 (Q6 - Easter)

Programming Exercise 6.2 (Fibonacci)

Programming Exercise 6.3 (Q2 - foobar)

Programming Exercise 6.3 (Q3 - CAPTCHA)

Programming Exercise 6.3 (Q4 – validate password)

Programming Exercise 6.3 (Q5 – Collatz sequence)

Programming Exercise 6.3 (Q6 – multiples of 3 or 5)

Programming Exercise 6.3 (Q7 – perfect numbers)

Programming Exercise 6.3 (Q8 – amicable pairs)

Breakout 6.1 (ATM System) – initial solution

Breakout 6.1 ATM System – suggested activities) Q1 –

maximum withdrawal of €200

Breakout 6.1 ATM System – suggested activities) Q2 – file

processing

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 Programming Exercise/ Breakout Activity Solution
Breakout 6.1 ATM System – suggested activities) Q3 –
PIN processing

Breakout 6.1 ATM System – suggested activities) Q4 – no

global variables

Breakout 6.2 Summing Numbers (suggested activities)

Q1(b) – sum of even

Breakout 6.2 Summing Numbers (suggested activities)

Q1(c) – sum from x to y

Breakout 6.2 Summing Numbers (further activities)

Q1 – sum of odd

Breakout 6.2 Summing Numbers (further activities)

Q2 – sum of reciprocals

Breakout 6.2 Summing Numbers (further activities)

Q3 – approximate pi

Breakout 6.2 Summing Numbers (further activities)

Q4 – approximate e

Breakout 6.3 Turtle Graphics Part I

Q2 – draw a square – no parameters

Breakout 6.3 Turtle Graphics Part I

Q3 – draw a square – with parameters

Breakout 6.3 Turtle Graphics Part I

Q4 – draw a rectangle

Breakout 6.3 Turtle Graphics Part I

Q5 – draw an n-sided polygon

Breakout 6.3 Turtle Graphics Part II

Q2 – draw angle

Breakout 6.3 Turtle Graphics Part II

Q3 – set pen position

Breakout 6.3 Turtle Graphics Part II

Q4 – draw angle passing in co-ordinates as parameters

Breakout 6.3 Turtle Graphics Part II

Q6 – investigate whether two drawAngles are allowed

Breakout 6.3 Turtle Graphics Further Activities

Q1 – refactor code

Breakout 6.3 Turtle Graphics Further Activities

Q2 (c) – draw the digits 2, 3 and 9

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 Programming Exercise/ Breakout Activity Solution
Breakout 6.4 Using check digits to verify codes. Further
Activities (ISBNs and Credit Cards)
Q2 (Luhn’s Algorithm to validate a credit card number)
Programming Exercise 7.1
Q1 (b) – identify the key-value pairs

Programming Exercise 7.1

Q1 (d) – alternative dictionary definition

Programming Exercise 7.1

Q1 (e) – predict the output

Programming Exercise 7.1

Q1 (h) – predict the output

Programming Exercise 7.1

Q2 (a) – alternative dictionary definition

Programming Exercise 7.1

Q2 (b) – predict the output

Programming Exercise 7.1

Q2 (b) – predict the output (translation)

Programming Exercise 7.1

Q3 – define a dictionary called book

Programming Exercise 7.1

Q4 – a dictionary to display the number of days in a month

Breakout 7.1 Frequency Counters

Q1(e) – count letters

Breakout 7.1 Frequency Counters

Q1(g) – count vowels

Breakout 7.1 Frequency Counters

Q1(h) – count vowels and consonants

Breakout 7.1 Frequency Counters

Q1(i) – count words

Breakout 7.1 Frequency Counters

Q1(j) – count most common letters

Breakout 7.1 Frequency Counters

Q1(k) – count most common letters (version 2)

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 Programming Exercise/ Breakout Activity Solution
Breakout 7.1 Frequency Counters
Q2(e) – count words

Breakout 7.1 Frequency Counters

Q2(f) – count most common words

Breakout 7.1 Frequency Counters

Q2(g) – words of length greater than 3

Breakout 7.1 Frequency Counters

Q2(h) – average word length

Breakout 7.1 Frequency Counters

Q3 – display bar chart with 10 most common words

Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 288
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Python Programming: A Manual for Teachers of Leaving Certificate Computer Science Page 289