Python:

Learn Python in One Week

by
Kilber Stewart

Copyrigh t © 2020 by Kilber Stewart – All rights reserved.

This book is copyright, and no part may be reproduced or
transmitted through any means, be it mechanical, electronic,
internet, or otherwise without the permission of the author except
in brief quotation or review of the book.
 Table of Contents

Introduction
What is a Program?
How to use Python Shell, IDLE, and Writing FIRST program
Variables and Operators
Data Types
Uses of input () and print () Functions
Conditional Statements
Functions
Introduction
Computers do not understand human language, so we write a program in a
language which a computer can understand. There are many different
programming languages like BASIC, Pascal, C, C++, Java, Haskell, Ruby,
Python, etc. In this book, you will learn about Python.
Guido Van Rossum created Python while he was working at CWI (Centrum
Wiskunde & Informatica), which is based in the Netherlands. Python was
released in 1991. Python got its name from a BBC comedy series from the
seventies- “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”.
Some of the features which make Python different from other programming
languages are as follows:

1. Easy to code and easy to read

Python is very easy to code as compared to other popular languages like
Java and C++. It is straightforward for anyone to learn Python syntax in just
a few hours. Also, Python is easy to read as it is similar to the English
language.

2. Free and Open-Source

Python is freely available. You can download it from
https://www.python.org/downloads/
Also, it is open-source. It means its source code is open to the public. One
can download it, change it, use it, and distribute it without any restrictions.

3. High-Level
It is a high-level language, meaning one does not need to remember the
system architecture. Also, as a programmer, we do not need to manage
memory. These features make Python more programmer-friendly.

4. Portable
Suppose you write a Python code for Windows and want to run on Mac.
Then you do not need to make changes to it. In simple words, you can run
Python code on any machine. You don’t need to write different codes for
different machines. This feature makes Python a portable language.

5. Interpreted
If you have written code in C++ or Java, you must first compile it and then
run it. But in the case of Python, you don’t need to compile it. By
interpreted, we mean the source code is executed line by line, and not all at
once.

6. Object-Oriented
An object-oriented language is a language that can model the real world. On
the other hand, a procedure-oriented language focuses on functions, which
are code that can be reused. Python supports both object-oriented and
procedure-oriented programming.

7. Large Standard Library

Python has an extensive library, meaning you don’t have to write code for
every single thing. The library comes with pre-written codes which you can
use while writing codes. There are libraries for regular expressions,
documentation-generation, unit-testing, web browsers, threading, databases,
CGI, image manipulation, and many more.
What is a Program?
A program is a set of instructions that is processed by a computer to
perform a specific task. The task can be mathematical or working with text.
To write and run a Python program, an interpreter is needed. IDLE
(Integrated Development Environment) is the most popular development
environment for Python. In IDLE, you can edit, run, browse and debug your
Python code. In this environment, it is effortless to write programs.
In this book, we will be using 3.8.5 IDLE to write and run code. You can
download it from https://www.python.org/downloads/ .

Simply click on “Download Python 3.8.5” and the software will be installed
on your computer.
How to use Python Shell, IDLE, and Writing
FIRST program

IDLE is a program that comes with a Python interpreter.

To launch the IDLE program, go to the start menu and in the search box
type IDLE. Once you find IDLE, click on it, and a window will be
presented to you, as shown below:

This is an interactive mode to use Python, meaning you can enter one
command at a time, and the Shell will return the result of the typed
command once the command is executed the Shell waits for the next
command.
You will type command at the lines starting with >>>. For example, type
the following commands:

>>> 5+2
7
>>> 5>7
False
>>> print ('Hello World')
Hello World

When you type 5+2, you are giving a command to the Shell, asking it to
perform the mathematical operation of addition. That is why the Shell
returns the value 7. When you type 5>7, you are asking the Shell if 5 is
greater than 7, so the Shell replies False. In the next line, the prin t
command asks the Shell to display the string Hello World.
If you exit from the Python Shell and enter it again, all the commands you
typed will be gone. In other words, you cannot create an actual program
with Python Shell. Python shell is suitable for testing specific commands
once you are getting started with Python. To code an actual program, you
will have to write your code in a text file and save it with a .py extension.
This type of file is also known as a Python script.
To create a Python script, simply click on File > New File on the menu bar
at the top of your Python Shell. This will open a new window in the form of
text editor where you will write your program.
Let us write our first program called the “Hello World” program.
Type the following code into your text editor.

#This code prints the words "Hello World"

print("Hello World")

As shown in the figure below, if you closely notice, line #This code prints
the words “Hello World ” is in red. On the other hand, the word prin t is
in purple, and “Hello World ” is in green. The words prin t and “Hello
World ” serve different purposes in our program, so they are displayed in
different colors.
In the above code #This code prints the words “Hello World” which is
displayed in red is not part of the program. This is a comment written to
make our code more readable for other programmers.
The Python interpreter ignores this line of code. To add comments to your
program, simply type a # sign before writing a comment as typed below:

#This is a comment
#This is also a comment
#This is yet another comment
Also, we can use three single quotes for writing multiline comments, for
example:

‘’’
This is a comment
This is also a comment
This is yet another comment
‘’’

To save your code, simply click on File > Save As… keep in mind to save
your code with .py extension.
Finally, to execute the program, simply click on Run > Run Module or press
F5. Now you will see the words Hello Worl d printed on your Python
Shell.
Chapter 3- Variables and Operators
In this chapter, you will learn about variables and operators. You will learn
about what variables are and how to declare them and name them. You will
also learn about the common operations that you can perform on variables.

What are Variables?

A variable is a memory location which is used to store data values. This
stored value is processed by the computer and is used to manipulate data.
For example, let us say that your program needs to store the name of the
user. To do that, you need to name this data username and assign it an
initial value. In Python assigning an initial value will define the variable
username. We define the userName using the following statement.
userName = ‘Peter’
Once you define the variable userName , your program will allocate a fixed
area of your computer storage space to store this data. Keep in mind that
every time you declare a new variable, you need to assign an initial value to
it. In the above example, we have assigned the value Peter; this value can
be changed in your program later.
You can also define multiple variables at one time, as shown below:
userAge, userName = 69, ‘Peter’
You can also write the above statement, as shown below:
userAge = 69
userName = ‘Peter’
How to Name a Variable?

In Python, a variable name can only contain letters (a-z, A-

B), numbers, and underscores (_).
The first character of a variable cannot be a number.
Some of the valid variables are userName, user_name,
user2Name.
 The invalid variable example will be 10userName.
Variable names are case sensitive, meaning username is not
the same as userName.
You cannot use reserved keywords to name a variable; some
of the reserved keywords are print, if, while, input, etc.
Assignment Operator
An assignment operator is used to assign a particular value to a variable.
The sign = is known as an assignment operator. The value on the right-hand
side of the = sign gets assigned to the variable on the left. As we have seen
in the above example, userAge = 69, we have assigned 69 to variable
userAge.
Let us type the following code in IDLE editor and save it.

x = 15
y = 101
x = y
print (“x = “, x)
print (“y = “, y)

Once you run the program you will get the following output:

x = 101
y = 101

Initially, 15 is assigned to x variable on the first line, 101 is assigned to y

variable in the next line value of y is assigned to x .
Now let’s change the program by changing the third line from x = y to y =
x . In mathematics, x = y and y = x mean the same thing. But not in
programming.
Once you run the second program, you will get the following output:

x = 15
y = 15

As we can see from above, the value of x remains as 15, on the other
hand the value of y is changed to 15. This is because the statement y = x
assigns the value of x to y.
Basic Operators
Basic operators in Python are +, -, *, /, //, %, and **, which are addition,
subtraction, multiplication, division, floor division, modulus, and exponent.
Using these signs, we can perform the mathematical operations on
variables.
Examples are:
Let us assume x = 20, y = 10
Addition:
x + y = 30
Subtraction:
x – y = 10
Multiplication:
x*y = 200
Division:
x/y = 2
Floor Division:
x//y = 2 (this operator is used to round down the answer to the nearest
whole number)
Modulus:
x%y = 0 (it returns the remainder when 20 is divided by 10)
Exponent:
x**y = 10240000000000 (20 to the power of 10)

More Assignment Operators

Apart from basic assignment operators, there are few more assignment
operators in Python. These include operators like +=, -= and *=.
Let us suppose we have the variable x, with an initial value of 20, then the
statement x = x + 10 can be written as x += 10.
The above statement states that the expression on the right-hand side, i.e, (x
+ 10) is first evaluated and the answer gets assigned to the left. So the
above statement becomes x = 30.
Hence we conclude that x = x + 10 can be written as x +=10 which
expresses the same meaning.
Similarly, if we want to do a subtraction, we can write x = x – 10 or x -=10.
Chapter 4 – Data Types
A data type is the type of data that a variable stores. In this chapter, we will
look into some basic data types in Python like integers, float and string.
After that we will discuss about the concept called type casting. And finally
we will discuss about more data types in Python: the list, tuple and
dictionary.

Integers
Integers are data types that are numbers that have no decimal parts, for
example, -5, -4, -3, 0, 5, 7, etc.
To declare an integer in Python, simply write
varName = initial value
For instance:
ageofUser = 32
pinCode = 347743

Float
Float are numbers that have decimal parts such as 1.234, -0.04342, 13.56.
To declare a float in Python, we will write varName = initial value
For instance:
height = 2.56
weight = 76.2

String
Strings are text.
You can declare strings in the following ways:
varName = ‘initial value’ (single quotes) or
varName = “initial value” (double quotes)
Examples are:
name = ‘Akash’
siblingsName = “Aron”
age = ‘40’
In the last example, we wrote age = ‘40’, which means age is a string
(because we have defined age with single quotes); however if we write age
= 40, then age is an integer because single quotes or double quotes is not
included.
You can combine multiple substrings by using the concatenate sign (+). For
example, “Aron” + “James” is equivalent to “Aron James”.

Type Casting
Sometimes we need to convert from one data type to another. This is known
as type casting.
To perform type casting, Python has three built-in functions (we will learn
about functions in a later chapter). These are int(), float(), and str()
functions.
The int() function takes in a float or a string and converts it to an integer.
To change a float to an integer, simply type int(6.764543). We will get 6 as
a result as you can see anything after the decimal point is removed. To
change a string to an integer, we will type int(“4”), and we will get 4 as an
output.
The float() function takes an integer or a string and converts it to a float.
For example, if we type float(5) or float(“5”), we will get 5.0 as an output.
If we type float(“5.72486”) we will get 5.72486 as an output. As you can
see, the quotations marks are removed; hence it is converted into a float.
The str() function converts an integer or float to a string. For example, if
we type str(5.2), we will get “5.2” as output.

List
Lists are a collection of data that are related to each other. Suppose we need
to store names of 5 users; instead of storing names in 5 variables we can
store names in one variable with the help of lists. Here is how you will
declare a list, simply write:
listName = [value1, value2, value3, value4, value5] keep in mind that we
use square brackets [] while declaring a list. A comma separates multiple
values.
Example:
userName = [‘Peter’, ‘John’, ‘Emile’, ‘Jackson’, ‘Anna’]
As you can see in the above example, we have declared a list variable
userName and have assigned the names to the variable.
To declare a list without assigning an initial value simply write listName =
[].
Each value in the list is assigned an index number; indexes always start
from ZERO. Hence the first value has an index of 0; the next has an index
of 1, and so on. For example,
userName[0] = ‘Peter’, userName[1] = ‘John’
You can also assign a list to a variable. So if we write userName1 =
userName , the variable userName1 will become [‘Peter’, ‘John’, ‘Emile’,
‘Jackson’, ‘Anna’].

Tuple
Tuples are similar to lists, but you cannot modify their values once you
declare tuples and assign initial values to it that value will stay for the rest
of the program.
To declare a tuple, simply write tupleName = (initial values). Keep in mind
that parentheses () are used while declaring a tuple. And the multiple values
are separated by a comma.
Example:
daysOfWeek = (“Monday”, “Tuesday”, “Wednesday”, “Thursday”,
“Friday”, “Saturday”, “Sunday”)
To access the individual values of tuple, we will be using their indexes
similar to list.
For instance, daysOfWeek[0] = “Monday”, daysOfWeek[2] =
“Wednesday”.

Dictionary
Dictionary is an unordered collection of items. Each item of a dictionary
has a key/value pair. To declare a dictionary we simply write
dictionaryName = {dictionary key : data}. We use curly braces {} while
declaring a dictionary, and commas separate the multiple pairs.
Example:
userNameAndHeight = {“John” : 4.2, “Aron” : 5.3, “Alvin” : 6.5}
We can also declare a dictionary using the dict () function. We can declare
the userNameAndHeight dictionary above by writing:
userNameAndHeight = dict (John = 4.2, Aron = 5.3, Alvin = 6.5)
When you use dict () function to declare a dictionary we use parentheses ()
in place of curly braces {} and you do not put quotation marks for the
dictionary keys.
To access individual items in the dictionary, we use the dictionary key. For
example, to get John’s height, you will write userNameAndHeight [“John”].
And you will get the value 4.2.
To modify items in a dictionary, we simply write
dictionaryName[dictionary key of item to be modified] = new data.
For example, to modify the “Aron” : 5.3 pair we will write
userNameAndHeight [“Aron”] = 5.1 . Now our dictionary becomes
userNameAndHeight = {“John” : 4.2, “Aron” : 5.3, “Alvin” : 6.5}.
Chapter 5-Uses of input () and print () Functions
In this chapter, we will know how we can make our programs more
interactive with the use of input () and print () functions.
Let us say that we want to write a program that displays your name and age
on the screen. To do that, we need to use two functions called input () and
print ().
Simply type the following code:

name = input (“Enter the name please: “)

age = input (“What is your age: “)
print (“My name is “, name, “and I am”, age, “years old.”)

Once you run the program, you will see the following output on the screen.

Enter the name please:

Here you need to enter a name, suppose you entered Alex. Now press Enter,
and you will see the following output on the screen.

What is your age:

Now suppose you entered 30. After that, press Enter again. Now you will
get the following output on the screen.

My name is Alex, and I am 30 years old.

input()
As you can see in the above example, we have used the input() function
two times to get out the user’s name and age.
name = input (“Enter the name please: “)
The above statement instructs the user to enter the name. Once the
statement “Enter the name please:” gets printed on the screen. The input()
function waits for the user to enter the name. Once the name is entered by
the user, the information gets stored as a string in the variable name. Now
the next input() function gets executed. The following statement gets
executed.
age = input (“What is your age: “)
Now “What is your age:” is gets printed on the screen, asking the user to
enter the age. Once the user enters the age, it gets stored as a string in the
variable age.
This is how the input() function works.

print()
The print() function is used to display a particular information to users. As
in the statement below, we can see the print() function has 5 arguments.
print (“My name is “, name, “and I am”, age, “years old.”)
The first argument is the string “My name is” the next is the variable name
which was declared using the input() function. Next is the string, “and I
am” next is the variable age, and the final argument is “years old.”

Triple Quotes
Triple quotes (‘’’ or “””) are used to display multiple lines using the print()
function. For example,

Print (‘’’My name is Alex

and I am 30 years old.’’’)

Above statement will give us the following output:

My name is Alex
and I am 30 years old.

In this manner we can increase the readability of our message.

Escape Characters
In some cases, we need to print some special characters such as a tab or a
newline. To do this, we will use the \ (backlash) character.
For example, if we want to print a tab, then we will type the backslash
character before the letter t. for instance, if you write
print (‘Hello\tWorld’), you will get the following output:
Hello World
Some other uses of backlash character are given below:

\n (This prints a newline)

>>> print (Hello\nWorld’)
Hello
World

\\ (This will print the backlash character itself)

>>> print (‘\\’)
\

\” (This will print the double quotes)

>>> print (“My height is 6’7\” tall”)
My height is 6’7” tall

\’ (This will print the single quote)

>>> print (‘My height is 6\’7” tall’)
My height is 6’7” tall
Chapter 6-Conditional Statements
In this chapter, we will learn about the if statement, for loop, and while
loop. But before we dive into for, if, and while loop statements, let us
understand what a conditional statement is.

Condition Statements
A conditional statement is a statement that compares two variables.
Suppose we want to compare whether two variables are the same or not. To
do this, we will use the == operator (double =). For example, if you want to
check whether the value of x is equal to the value of y , we will write x ==
y . if the condition is met we will get True, or else we will get False.
Some other comparison operators are != (not equal) , < (smaller than) , >
(greater than), <= (smaller than or equal to) and >= (greater than or equal
to). For instance,
Not equal:
4 != 5
Greater than:
7>5
Smaller than:
8<9
Greater than or equal to:
7 >= 4
6 >= 6
Smaller than or equal to:
1 <= 7
5 <= 5
The above statements will be evaluated to True.
if Statement
If statement is a decision-making statement that is used in Python. The
syntax of if statement is as follows:

if condition 1 is met :
do A
elif condition 2 is met :
do B
elif condition 3 is met :
do C
elif condition 4 is met :
do D
else:
do E

In the above syntax elif stands for “else if” you can have as many elif
statements as you wish.
Now let’s write a program to understand if statement better:

num = 4
if num > 0:
print(”Positive number”)
elif num == 0:
print(“Zero”)
else:
print(“Negative number”)

If you run this program you will get the following output:

Positive number

If num is positive, Positive number is printed. If num is equal to 0, Zero

is printed. However, if num is negative, Negative number is printed.
In the above code we have assigned num = 4 , hence the statement num >
0 becomes true so Positive number is printed.

for Loop
The for loop in Python is used to iterate over a sequence (list, tuple, string)
or other iterable objects. Syntax for for loop is:

For iterator_var in sequence:

statements(s)

For example:

n=4
for i in range(0, n):
print(i)

Output:

0
1
2
3

Another example:

Print(“List Iteration”)
l = [“geeks”, “for”, geeks”]
for i in l:
print(i)
print(“\nTuple Iteration”)
t = (“geeks”, “for”, geeks”)
for i in t:
print(i)
print(\nString Iteration”)
s = “Geeks”
for i in s :
print(i)
print(\nDictionary Iteration”)
d = dict()
d[‘xyz’] = 123
d[‘abc’] = 345
for i in d :
print(“%s %d” %(i, d[i]))
Output:

List Iteration
Geeks
For
Geeks

Tuple Iteration
Geeks
For
Geeks

String Iteration
G
e
e
k
s

Dictionary Iteration
xyz 123
abc 345

We can also include else statement with for loop. As there is no condition in
for loop based on which the execution will terminate so the else block will
be executed immediately after for block finishes execution. The following
program will explain the concept better.

list = [“geeks”, “for”, “geeks”]

for index in range(len(list)):
print list[index]
else:
print “Inside Else Block”

Output:
Geeks
For
Geeks
Inside Else Block

while Loop
while loop executes instructions inside the loop while certain condition
remains valid. The syntax of a while statement is:

while condition is true:

do A

For example,

count = 7
while count > 0:
 print (“Count = “, count)
count = count – 1

Output:

Count = 7
Count = 6
Count = 5
Count = 4
Count = 3
Count = 2
Count = 1

Break
In loop statement sometimes we need to exit the loop when a particular
condition is met. In order to do that we will use break keyword. For
instance run the following program,
k=0
for i in range(5):
k=k+2
print (‘i = ‘, i, ‘, k = ‘, k)
if k == 6:
break
Output:

i = 0, k = 2
i = 1, k = 4
i =2, k = 6

Continue
continue keyword is used in loop statements. Once we use continue
statement, the rest of the loop after the keyword is skipped for that iteration.
For example,

j=0
for i in range(5):
j=j+2
print (‘\ni = ‘, i, ‘, j = ‘, j)
if j == 6:
continue
print (‘I will be skipped over if j=6’)

Output:

i=0,j=2
I will be skipped over if j=6
i=1,j=4
I will be skipped over if j=6
i=2,j=6
i=3,j=8
I will be skipped over if j=6
i = 4 , j = 10
I will be skipped over if j =6
Chapter 7-Functions
Functions are pre written codes which perform a specific task. We use def
keyword to define functions.
Here is an example:

def my_function():
print(“Hello this is a function”)
To call a function we use the function name followed by parenthesis:
Example:

def my_function():
print(“Hello this is a function”)
my_function()

Output:

Hello this is a function