Python 2

Overview
 Dictionaries
 Functions
 Logical expressions
 Flow of control
 Comprehensions
 For loops
 More on functions
 Assignment and containers
 Strings
 Dictionaries: A Mapping type
 Dictionaries store a mapping between a set of
keys and a set of values
• Keys can be any immutable type.
• Values can be any type
• A single dictionary can store values of
different types
 You can define, modify, view, lookup or delete
the key-value pairs in the dictionary
 Python’s dictionaries are also known as hash
tables and associative arrays
 Creating & accessing dictionaries

>>> d = {‘user’:‘bozo’, ‘pswd’:1234}

>>> d[‘user’]
‘bozo’
>>> d[‘pswd’]
123
>>> d[‘bozo’]
Traceback (innermost last):
File ‘<interactive input>’ line 1, in
?
KeyError: bozo
 Updating Dictionaries
>>> d = {‘user’:‘bozo’, ‘pswd’:1234}
>>> d[‘user’] = ‘clown’
>>> d
{‘user’:‘clown’, ‘pswd’:1234}
 Keys must be unique
 Assigning to an existing key replaces its value
>>> d[‘id’] = 45
>>> d
{‘user’:‘clown’, ‘id’:45, ‘pswd’:1234}
 Dictionaries are unordered
• New entries can appear anywhere in output
 Dictionaries work by hashing
 Removing dictionary entries
>>> d = {‘user’:‘bozo’, ‘p’:1234, ‘i’:34}
>>> del d[‘user’] # Remove one.
>>> d
{‘p’:1234, ‘i’:34}
>>> d.clear() # Remove all.
>>> d
{}
>>> a=[1,2]
>>> del a[1] # del works on lists, too
>>> a
[1]
 Useful Accessor Methods

>>> d = {‘user’:‘bozo’, ‘p’:1234, ‘i’:34}

>>> d.keys() # List of keys, VERY useful

[‘user’, ‘p’, ‘i’]

>>> d.values() # List of values

[‘bozo’, 1234, 34]

>>> d.items() # List of item tuples

[(‘user’,‘bozo’), (‘p’,1234), (‘i’,34)]
Why must keys be immutable?
 The keys used in a dictionary must be immutable
objects?
>>> name1, name2 = 'john', ['bob', 'marley']
>>> fav = name2
>>> d = {name1: 'alive', name2: 'dead'}
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: list objects are unhashable
 Why is this?
 Suppose we could index a value for name2
 and then did fav[0] = “Bobby”
 Could we find d[name2] or d[fav] or …?
Functions in Python
 Defining Functions
Function definition begins with “def.” Function name and its arguments.

def get_final_answer(filename):
“““Documentation String”””
line1
line2 Colon.
return total_counter

The indentation matters…

First line with less
indentation is considered to be The keyword ‘return’ indicates the
outside of the function definition. value to be sent back to the caller.

No header file or declaration of types of function or arguments

 Python and Types

 Dynamic typing: Python determines the data

types of variable bindings in a program
automatically
 Strong typing: But Python’s not casual about
types, it enforces the types of objects
 For example, you can’t just append an integer
to a string, but must first convert it to a string
x = “the answer is ” # x bound to a string
y = 23 # y bound to an integer.
print x + y # Python will complain!
 Calling a Function
 The syntax for a function call is:
>>> def myfun(x, y):
return x * y
>>> myfun(3, 4)
12
 Parameters in Python are Call by Assignment
• Old values for the variables that are parameter
names are hidden, and these variables are
simply made to refer to the new values
• All assignment in Python, including binding
function parameters, uses reference semantics.
 Functions without returns
 All functions in Python have a return value,
even if no return line inside the code
 Functions without a return return the special
value None
• None is a special constant in the language
• None is used like NULL, void, or nil in other
languages
• None is also logically equivalent to False
• The interpreter doesn’t print None
 Function overloading? No.

 There is no function overloading in Python

• Unlike C++, a Python function is specified by
its name alone
The number, order, names, or types of its arguments
cannot be used to distinguish between two functions
with the same name
• Two different functions can’t have the same
name, even if they have different arguments
 But: see operator overloading in later slides
(Note: van Rossum playing with function overloading for the future )
 Default Values for Arguments
 You can provide default values for a function’s
arguments
 These arguments are optional when the
function is called

>>> def myfun(b, c=3, d=“hello”):

return b + c
>>> myfun(5,3,”hello”)
>>> myfun(5,3)
>>> myfun(5)

All of the above function calls return 8

 Keyword Arguments
 You can call a function with some or all of its
arguments out of order as long as you specify
their names
 You can also just use keywords for a final
subset of the arguments.
>>> def myfun(a, b, c):
return a-b
>>> myfun(2, 1, 43)
1
>>> myfun(c=43, b=1, a=2)
1
>>> myfun(2, c=43, b=1)
1
Functions are first-class objects
Functions can be used as any other datatype, eg:
• Arguments to function
• Return values of functions
• Assigned to variables
• Parts of tuples, lists, etc
>>> def square(x):
return x*x
>>> def applier(q, x):
return q(x)
>>> applier(square, 7)
49
 Lambda Notation
 Python uses a lambda notation to create
anonymous functions
>>> applier(lambda z: z * 4, 7)
28

 Python supports functional programming

idioms, including closures and continuations
 Lambda Notation

Be careful with the syntax

>>> f = lambda x,y : 2 * x + y
>>> f
<function <lambda> at 0x87d30>
>>> f(3, 4)
10
>>> v = lambda x: x*x(100)
>>> v
<function <lambda> at 0x87df0>
>>> v = (lambda x: x*x)(100)
>>> v
10000
 Example: composition
>>> def square(x):
return x*x
>>> def twice(f):
return lambda x: f(f(x))
>>> twice
<function twice at 0x87db0>
>>> quad = twice(square)
>>> quad
<function <lambda> at 0x87d30>
>>> quad(5)
625
Logical Expressions
 True and False
 True and False are constants in Python.
 Other values equivalent to True and False:
• False: zero, None, empty container or
object
• True: non-zero numbers, non-empty
objects
 Comparison operators: ==, !=, <, <=, etc.
• X and Y have same value: X == Y
• Compare with X is Y :
—X and Y are two variables that refer to
the identical same object.
 Boolean Logic Expressions
 You can also combine Boolean
expressions.
• True if a is True and b is True: a and b
• True if a is True or b is True: a or b
• True if a is False: not a
 Use parentheses as needed to
disambiguate complex Boolean
expressions.
 Special Properties of and & or
 Actually and and or don’t return True or False but value
of one of their sub-expressions, which may be a non-
Boolean value
 X and Y and Z
• If all are true, returns value of Z
• Otherwise, returns value of first false sub-expression
 X or Y or Z
• If all are false, returns value of Z
• Otherwise, returns value of first true sub-expression
 And and or use lazy evaluation, so no further
expressions are evaluated
Control of Flow
 if Statements
if x == 3:
print “X equals 3.”
elif x == 2:
print “X equals 2.”
else:
print “X equals something else.”
print “This is outside the ‘if’.”

Be careful! The keyword if is also used in the

syntax of filtered list comprehensions. Note:
 Use of indentation for blocks
 Colon (:) after boolean expression
 while Loops
>>> x = 3
>>> while x < 5:
print x, "still in the loop"
x = x + 1
3 still in the loop
4 still in the loop
>>> x = 6
>>> while x < 5:
print x, "still in the loop"

>>>
 break and continue
 You can use the keyword break inside a
loop to leave the while loop entirely.

 You can use the keyword continue inside

a loop to stop processing the current
iteration of the loop and to immediately
go on to the next one.
 assert
 An assert statement will check to make
sure that something is true during the
course of a program.
• If the condition if false, the program stops
—(more accurately: the program
throws an exception)

assert(number_of_players < 5)
 List
Comprehensions
Python’s higher-order functions
 Python supports higher-order functions that
operate on lists similar to Scheme’s
>>> def square(x):
return x*x
>>> def even(x):
return 0 == x % 2
>>> map(square, range(10,20))
[100, 121, 144, 169, 196, 225, 256, 289, 324, 361]
>>> filter(even, range(10,20))
[10, 12, 14, 16, 18]
>>> map(square, filter(even, range(10,20)))
[100, 144, 196, 256, 324]
 But many Python programmers prefer to use list
comprehensions, instead
 List Comprehensions
 A list comprehension is a programming
language construct for creating a list based on
existing lists
• Haskell, Erlang, Scala and Python have them
 Why “comprehension”? The term is borrowed
from math’s set comprehension notation for
defining sets in terms of other sets
 A powerful and popular feature in Python
• Generate a new list by applying a function to every
member of an original list
 Python’s notation:
[ expression for name in list ]
 List Comprehensions
 The syntax of a list comprehension is
somewhat tricky

[x-10 for x in grades if x>0]

 Syntax suggests that of a for-loop, an in
operation, or an if statement
 All three of these keywords (‘for’, ‘in’, and ‘if’)
are also used in the syntax of forms of list
comprehensions

[ expression for name in list ]

 List Comprehensions
Note: Non-standard
>>> li = [3, 6, 2, 7] colors on next few
>>> [elem*2 for elem in li]
slides clarify the list
[6, 12, 4, 14]
comprehension syntax.

[ expression for name in list ]

• Where expression is some calculation or operation
acting upon the variable name.
• For each member of the list, the list comprehension
1. sets name equal to that member,
2. calculates a new value using expression,
• It then collects these new values into a list which is
the return value of the list comprehension.

[ expression for name in list ]

 List Comprehensions
 If list contains elements of different types, then
expression must operate correctly on the
types of all of list members.
 If the elements of list are other containers,
then the name can consist of a container of
names that match the type and “shape” of the
list members.

>>> li = [(‘a’, 1), (‘b’, 2), (‘c’, 7)]

>>> [ n * 3 for (x, n) in li]
[3, 6, 21]

[ expression for name in list ]

 List Comprehensions
 expression can also contain user-defined
functions.
>>> def subtract(a, b):
return a – b

>>> oplist = [(6, 3), (1, 7), (5, 5)]

>>> [subtract(y, x) for (x, y) in oplist]
[-3, 6, 0]

[ expression for name in list ]

 Filtered List Comprehension
 Filter determines whether expression is
performed on each member of the list.

 For each element of list, checks if it satisfies the

filter condition.

 If the filter condition returns False, that element

is omitted from the list before the list
comprehension is evaluated.

[ expression for name in list if filter]

 Filtered List Comprehension

>>> li = [3, 6, 2, 7, 1, 9]
>>> [elem*2 for elem in li if elem > 4]
[12, 14, 18]

 Only 6, 7, and 9 satisfy the filter condition

 So, only 12, 14, and 18 are produce.

[ expression for name in list if filter]

 Nested List Comprehensions

 Since list comprehensions take a list as input

and produce a list as output, they are easily
nested
>>> li = [3, 2, 4, 1]
>>> [elem*2 for elem in
[item+1 for item in li] ]
[8, 6, 10, 4]

 The inner comprehension produces: [4, 3, 5, 2]

 So, the outer one produces: [8, 6, 10, 4]

[ expression for name in list ]

For Loops
 For Loops / List Comprehensions
 Python’s list comprehensions provide a
natural idiom that usually requires a for-loop in
other programming languages.
• As a result, Python code uses many fewer
for-loops
• Nevertheless, it’s important to learn about
for-loops.

 Take care! The keywords for and in are also

used in the syntax of list comprehensions, but
this is a totally different construction.
 For Loops 1
 A for-loop steps through each of the items in a
collection type, or any other type of object
which is “iterable”
for <item> in <collection>:
<statements>
 If <collection> is a list or a tuple, then the loop
steps through each element of the sequence
 If <collection> is a string, then the loop steps
through each character of the string
for someChar in “Hello World”:
print someChar
 For Loops 2
for <item> in <collection>:
<statements>
 <item> can be more than a single variable name
 When the <collection> elements are themselves
sequences, then <item> can match the structure
of the elements.
 This multiple assignment can make it easier to
access the individual parts of each element
for (x,y) in [(a,1),(b,2),(c,3),(d,4)]:
print x
For loops & the range() function
 Since a variable often ranges over some
sequence of numbers, the range() function
returns a list of numbers from 0 up to but not
including the number we pass to it.
 range(5) returns [0,1,2,3,4]
 So we could say:
for x in range(5):
print x
 (There are more complex forms of range() that
provide richer functionality…)
 For Loops and Dictionaries

>>> ages = { "Sam" : 4, "Mary" : 3, "Bill" : 2 }

>>> ages
{'Bill': 2, 'Mary': 3, 'Sam': 4}
>>> for name in ages.keys():
print name, ages[name]
Bill 2
Mary 3
Sam 4
>>>
Assignment and Containers
Multiple Assignment with Sequences

 We’ve seen multiple assignment before:

>>> x, y = 2, 3

 But you can also do it with sequences.

 The type and “shape” just has to match.

>>> (x, y, (w, z)) = (2, 3, (4, 5))

>>> [x, y] = [4, 5]
 Empty Containers 1
 Assignment creates a name, if it didn’t exist
already.
x = 3 Creates name x of type integer.
 Assignment is also what creates named
references to containers.
>>> d = {‘a’:3, ‘b’:4}
 We can also create empty containers:
>>> li = []
Note: an empty container
>>> tu = () is logically equivalent to
>>> di = {} False. (Just like None.)
 These three are empty, but of different types
 Empty Containers 2
Why create a named reference to empty
container?
• To initialize an empty list, e.g., before using
append
• This would cause an unknown name error if
a named reference to the right data type
wasn’t created first
>>> g.append(3)
Python complains here about the unknown name ‘g’!
>>> g = []
>>> g.append(3)
>>> g
[3]
String Operations
 String Operations
 A number of methods for the string class
perform useful formatting operations:

>>> “hello”.upper()
‘HELLO’

 Check the Python documentation for many

other handy string operations.

 Helpful hint: use <string>.strip() to strip

off final newlines from lines read from files
 String Formatting Operator: %
 The operator % allows strings to be built out of
many data items a la “fill in the blanks”
• Allows control of how the final output appears
• For example, we could force a number to display with
a specific number of digits after the decimal point
 Very similar to the sprintf command of C.
>>> x = “abc”
>>> y = 34
>>> “%s xyz %d” % (x, y)
‘abc xyz 34’
 The tuple following the % operator used to fill in
blanks in original string marked with %s or %d.
 Check Python documentation for codes
 Printing with Python
 You can print a string to the screen using print
 Using the % operator in combination with print, we can
format our output text
>>> print “%s xyz %d” % (“abc”, 34)
abc xyz 34
 Print adds a newline to the end of the string. If you include a list
of strings, it will concatenate them with a space between them
>>> print “abc” >>> print “abc”, “def”
abc abc def

 Useful trick: >>> print “abc”, doesn’t add newline just a

single space
String Conversions
 Join and Split
 Join turns a list of strings into one string
<separator_string>.join( <some_list> )
>>> “;”.join( [“abc”, “def”, “ghi”] )
“abc;def;ghi”
 Split turns one string into a list of strings
<some_string>.split( <separator_string> )

>>> “abc;def;ghi”.split( “;” )

[“abc”, “def”, “ghi”]
 Note the inversion in the syntax
Split & Join with List Comprehensions
 Split and join can be used in a list compre-
hension in the following Python idiom:
>>> " ".join( [s.capitalize() for s in "this is a test ".split( )] )
'This Is A Test‘
>>> # For clarification:
>>> "this is a test" .split( )
['this', 'is', 'a', 'test']
>>> [s.capitalize() for s in "this is a test" .split()]
['This', 'Is', 'A', 'Test’]
 Convert Anything to a String
 The builtin str() function can convert an
instance of any data type into a string.
 You define how this function behaves for user-
created data types
 You can also redefine the behavior of this
function for many types.

>>> “Hello ” + str(2)

“Hello 2”