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COR-IS1702: COMPUTATIONAL THINKING

WEEK 1D: PROGRAMMING PART 2

2022/23 Term 1
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Road Map

Algorithm Design and Analysis

✦ Week 1: Introduction, Counting, Programming
✦ Week 2: Programming
Homework for Wk 1
✦ Week 3: Complexity
✦ Week 4: Iteration & Decomposition
✦ Week 5: Recursion

Fundamental Data Structures

(Weeks 6 - 10)

Computational Intractability and Heuristic Reasoning

(Weeks 11 - 13)
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Writing Your Own Functions

• You have used the sqrt() function. Someone wrote it, and you called it.
• Now you are going to write (or define) your own function for others
(or yourself) to call.
• You can define a function called celsius like this:

• And then use it:

• Sometimes, we say we invoke or call the celsius function.

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…Writing Your Own Functions

There are 2 perspectives:
From the function user's point-of-view: From the function writer's point-of-view:
• you are the service consumer. • you are the service provider
• the function is a "black box"; you do • you need to know how to how to write
not need to know what goes on inside the code inside the function
it  the details of how the function • the function's name and inputs form the
works is abstracted from you "contract" between your function & the
• you simply call/invoke the function function user.
using its name and pass in any • you should document "what" the
necessary inputs function does for your function's user.
• you expect the function to return the "how" it is done may not be important
correct output to you to the user.
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In-class Ex 4: T31-40
• The next Tutorial Project requires you to write two functions:
celsius()
countertop()

• Try Tutorial Project T31-40 (p.49 of the PDF or p.35 of

textbook)
– Go to
https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1jPE4-QT8nhubE9gl1LhWx
QWzxslULMNN
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Reflecting on Tutorial Project T31-40

Arguments (values passed into a function)
function definition
def f1(x):
return x * 2
when calling it:
f1(10)

A function can take in multiple values:

function definition x corresponds to 10,
y corresponds to 20
def f2(x, y):
return x * y
when calling it:
f2(10, 20)
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…Reflecting on Tutorial Project T31-40

Alternatively, when calling a function, you may specifically state which
argument(value) is to be assigned to which parameter. This works as well:
function definition
def f1(x):
return x * 2
when calling it:
f1(x=10)

function definition
def f2(x, y):
return x * y
when calling it:
f2(x=10, y=20)
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…Reflecting on Tutorial Project T31-40

• You can have multiple statements in a function. The statements in the function will run
sequentially. E.g.
def f3(x, y):
z=x*y
return z
• return and def are "reserved words" or "keywords" in Python. You cannot choose
keywords as variable or function names.
• In Python, the start and end of functions are not demarcated by symbols. The way you
indent the statements will tell Python where the function starts and ends.
• You can have a function that takes in nothing
• You can have a function that doesn't have a return statement (and hence return
None).
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…Reflecting on Tutorial Project T31-40

• You can insert "docstrings" in a function. Docstrings are helpful
hints to programmers who use your function as to what it
does.
– Use help(<function_name>) to see the docstring for that function.
– Try: help(sqrt) docstring
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Boolean Expressions
• A Boolean expression is a combination of values, variable names and operators,
and
– Always evaluates to either True or False.
• E.g. of Boolean expressions:
– 10 > 5
– 10 < 10
– 10 <= 10
– x == 10
• These are Boolean operators:
<, <=, >, >=, ==, !=
• Important:
== is not the same as =
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Conditional Execution
• New keywords: if, else
• tax_rate is a function to compute tax rate depending on income
level:
– People who earn less than $10k will be taxed at 0%, but
– People who earn $10k or more will be taxed at 5%
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…Conditional Execution
• New keyword: elif (else if)
• Let's say the tax rate calculation rules have changed to 3 tiers:
– People who earn less than $10k will be taxed at 0% (same), but
– People who earn $10k to below 20k will be taxed at 5%, and
– People who earn $20k or more will be taxed at 7%.
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In-class Ex 5: T41-46
• Try Tutorial Project T41-46 (p.52 of the PDF or p.38 of
textbook)
– Go to
https://colab.research.google.com/drive/19wneP3Hm4VovweLAZWF
9VqEpwpxXoB_H
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Reflecting on Tutorial Project T41-46

• An if block may contain multiple statements. E.g. this is OK:
def f1(x):
if x > 10:
print("bigger than 10")
return True
else:
print("smaller or equal 10")
return False

• When calling a function, once the program reaches a "return" statement, the
function terminates immediately.
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…Reflecting on Tutorial Project T41-46

• This function doesn't make sense because lines 4, 5 and 8 will
never get a chance to run. But will not cause an error:
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…Reflecting on Tutorial Project T41-46

• It is possible to use if without else or elif:
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…Reflecting on Tutorial Project T41-46

• It is possible to use if without else or elif:

To be viewed as 1 statement.

When line 2 is executed, and the Boolean

expression is False (i.e. x>10 is False), the
program will move to line 4.
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Strings
• We have seen integers, floats and booleans. Data can be stored as strings as
well.
• A string is a set of characters (letters, digits, punctuation marks, spaces etc.) enclosed in quotes.
• We can store strings in variables:
>>> s = "hello"
• We can do interesting things with strings:
>>> "pine" + "apple" String concatenation

>>> s + "world"
>>> s * 3 Returns a Boolean depending on whether
>>> "hell" in s "hell" is a substring of s

>>> len(s) Returns the no. of characters in s

>>> str.count(s,"l")
>>> s.count("l")
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In-class Ex 6: T47-65
• Try Tutorial Project T47-65 (p.55 of the PDF or p.41 of textbook)
– Go to
https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1NvGDjZn4xAdCacqL6epTYoGwBGJPnrM9

• Typos in textbook (already rectified in colab):

– T48:
• Code given for plural.py line 1: should be "w" instead of "word"
– T49:
• len((s + '! ') * 2)
Exclamation mark and a space
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Reflecting on Tutorial Project T47-65

• How do you include a quotation mark in a string?

– Search for "python escape characters"
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In-class Ex 7: T66-71
• Try Tutorial Project T66-71 (p.60 of the PDF or p.46 of textbook)
– Go to https://colab.research.google.com/drive/18PdggEz01YXoV0LZoH1mIVUjjtsuVi0n
– You will get to use the type() function.

– Typo in textbook (already rectified in colab)

• T68 should be:
x ** 2
Instead of
s ** 2
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Reflecting on Tutorial Project T66-71

• In Python, a variable can be used to store a value
of any type:
– A variable used to store an integer may be reassigned to store a string
– You can check if a variable is of a particular type by using the is keyword -->
– In order to write a more robust function, you may want to check if the
value that the caller has passed in is of a certain type.
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Summary
• Programming part 1 (week 1 class time):
– Arithmetic operations (operand, operator)
– Integers vs. floats
– Calling a function (e.g., sqrt)
– Using variables
• Programming part 2 (this slide deck)
– Writing a function for others to call
– Conditionals (if, elif, else)
– Strings
– type() function
• In week 2, we will look at other Python features such as loops and lists.