CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Computer Science for Cambridge IGCSE™ & O Level PROGRAMMING BOOK FOR PYTHON Chris Roffey> _ CAMBRIDGE IGCSE™ & 0 LEVEL COMPUTER SCIENCE: PROGRAMMIN >» Contents ‘The items in orange are available on the digital edition that accompanies this book Introduction How to use this book How to use this series 1 Python 3 14 Getting Python 3 and IDLE. 1.2 Other Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) 1.3. Turtle graphics 1.4 Graphical user interface (GUD) applications 1.5 Additional support 2. Variables and arithmetic operators 21 Variables and constants 22 Typesof data 2.3 Pseudo numbers 2.4 Naming conventions in Python 2.5 Arithmetic operators 2.6 Programming tasks 27 Python modules 2.8 Random and Round 3. Algorithm design tools 34 Programming constructs 32 Design tools 3.3. Flowcharts 3.4 Pseudocode 3.5 Effective use of flowcharts and pseudocode 4 Subroutines 4.1 Subroutines 4.2 Programming a function 4.3 Programming a procedure 8 2 wy 28 2» 1 M 2 4 |G BOOK 5 GUI applications 5.1 Make your first application in a window with a button 5.2 Other tkinter widgets you can use in your applications 5.3 Choosing a text-based or GUI application 6 Sequence and strings 61 Flowcharts and sequence 6.2 Pseudocode and sequence 63 Use of flowcharts and pseudocode in programming 6.4 String manipulation in Python 7 Selection 7.1 IF statements 7.2 Logical operators 7.3 Coding IF statements in Python 7.4 Multiple IF statements 7.5 Nested IF statements 7.6 CASE statements 7.7 Drawing flowcharts for CASE statements 7.8 Boolean operators 8 Iteration 81 Types iteration 82 FOR loops 83 WHILE loops 8.4 REPEAT..UNTIL loops 8.5 Gathering experimental data aa £6 22Contents: 9 System design 12.6 — Breakpoints, variable tracing 9.4. | aap Rowden sand stepping through code 161 9.2 Structure diagrams a60 12.7 Beta testing 168 pe 105 43 Files and databases 94 The complete design process 109 43.4 files 168 10 Arrays 13.2. Databases im 10.1 Declaring an array 13 13.3 Querying databases 173, 10.2 Initialising arrays 4 13.4 Python and SQL 178 10.3. wanes , 13.5 More advanced SQL 179 10-4 ger ean 126 14 Programming scenario task 10.5 Two-dimensional arrays 128 Thai ereetintrmicemte a 10.6 ae tae sO 14.2 Constructing a skeleton answer 185 in Python 3 : eh re 14.3 Filling in the details 186 11 Checking inputs 14.4 Putting it all together 188 414 Validation 136 14.5 Final thoughts 189 ie 137 45 Examination practice 194, 14.3. Programming validation into : your systems 137 Appendix 1: Turtle reference 205 2 Teste Appendix 2: Tkinter reference 207 12.1 Whento test 152 Glossary 2 sins 152 122) a Acknowledgements 214 12.3 IDE debugging tools and diagnostics 1540 Colutions 12.4 Identifying logical errors 156, 125 Dry running 156. > Chapter 1 Pytho a) %> CAMBRIDGE IGCSE™ & © LEVEL COMPUTER SCIENCE: PROGRAMMING BOOK Introduction Python is a modern, powerful programming language used by many organisations such as YouTube, Wikipedia, Google, Dropbox, CERN and NASA. At the time of writing, Python is listed as the third most popular programming language in the world, Python 3 is the latest version of the Python programming language. It is a loosely typed script language. Loosely typed means that itis usually not necessary to declare variable types; the interpreter looks after this. A compiler converts instructions into ‘machine code that can be read and executed by a computer. Script languages do not have a compiler. This means that, in general, Python programs cannot run as quickly as compiled languages. However, this brings numerous advantages sich as fast and agile development 1.1 Getting Python 3 and IDLE There are Python 3 installers for most types of computer available on the python.org website. You should choose the latest stable version of Python 3 (Python 3.8.1 at time of writing). When downloaded and installed, you will find Python comes with a perfectly good IDE called IDLE, Starting up IDLE will enable you to run a program straight away An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) isa piece of software that is similar toa word processor but for writing programs. IDEs provide special tools that help programmers do their jobs more efficiently. They usually have an easy way of running the programs during the development stage —such as a Run button. There are many IDEs that can be used with Python. Some of them are very complicated to use, with ‘many specialist tools for teams of developers that work on very large projects. IDLE is an IDE that has all the tools a learner requires and very litte to get in your way. Everything that you are asked to do in this book can be done with IDLE. Figure 1.1 shows what you are presented with when you first open IDLE. Python 3.8.1 (v3.8.1:1b293»6006, Dec 18 2019, 14:08:53) [lang 6.0" (clang-600.0.57)) on darwin, [type “heip", "copyright", “eredita™ or "License()* for more information Figure 1.1: IDLE's Python shell on an Apple computer loosely typed: programming languages, such as Python, where the programmer does not have to declare the variable type when initialising or declaring variables. ad Integrated Development Environment (IDE): software that helps programmers to design, create and test program code. IDLE: the IDE provided when Python is installed.Figure 1.1 shows the Python shell, which is the first thing that opens when you start HDLE. This is an unusual feature in Python, In the shell, we ean write Python ‘commands and code snippets and run them without having to save a file In this book, ‘we Will refer to typing code into the shell as an ‘interactive session’. Interactive sessions aire great for experimenting and trying out new things that you learn about Python, When you are presented with an interactive session, it is expected that you will open a Python shell and type in what is shown, When you have done this, you are encouraged to then try out your own ideas until you feel confident with the new feature. Open IDLE from your Python instal folder now and follow the instructions in the interactive session below Open a Python shell and type in the following code after the >>> prompt: >>> print (‘Hello world Press return, You have now run your first interactive mode program. Your code told the computer to print the text ‘Hello world!’ to the screen. It executed your code when you pressed the return key on your keyboard. You can also use interactive mode as a simple calculator. Try entering this sum and press return: >>> 3%4 Interactive sessions are used to illustrate simple concepts or to show the correct use of some new syntax. Itis a good idea to start your own interactive session and follow along with the book. You may then want to experiment further to deepen your understanding Sometimes we want to save our programs; this is not possible in the Python shell. To do this we open a file, type in our code and then save the file with a .py extension. In this book, we refer to this as working in script mode. In Python we can have the Python shell open at the same time as a script window. This means that while writi 4 program, you can still swap into the Python shell to try out something before continuing to write your program. The Python shell serves another purpose. It is where you can type any input a program asks for and it is where any output appears. In IDLE the two windows are separate and you are free to arrange your desktop as you wish, To open a new file for programming in script mode you click on File and then New Fite as shown in Figure 1.2 on the following page. 1 Python 3 Python shell: a window that allows Python programmers to write and run code a line at a time without having to save the code in a file. Itis also where users can provide input and where output is sent. interactive mode: when writing and running code in the Python shell window, interactive mode allows us to try out snippets of code without saving. execute: another word for run Programmers tend to prefer to talk about a program executing rather than running, but they mean the same thing script mede: Python scripts are written ina text editor or IDE and saved with the .py extension. Script mode enables programmers to write longer programs that can be edited or run at any time in the future