Python – Recap
AI Practice (OSS)
Fall 2025
Types and Operators
2
The Python Interpreter
▪ Python is an interpreted language.
▪ Commands are executed through the Python interpreter.
▪ The interpreter receives a command, evaluates that command,
and reports the result of the command.
▪ A programmer defines a series of commands in advance and saves
those commands in a text file known as source code or a script.
▪ For Python, source code is conventionally stored in a file named
with the .py suffix (e.g., [Link]).
3
An Example Program
4
Objects in Python
▪ Python is an object-oriented language and classes form the basis for all data types.
▪ Python’s built-in classes:
▪ the int class for integers,
▪ the float class for floating-point values,
▪ the str class for character strings.
5
Identifiers, Objects, and the Assignment Statement
▪ The most important of all Python commands is an assignment statement:
temperature = 98.6
▪ This command establishes temperature as an identifier (also known as a name),
and then associates it with the object expressed on the right-hand side of the equal sign,
in this case a floating-point object with value 98.6.
6
Identifiers
▪ Identifiers in Python are case-sensitive, so temperature and Temperature are distinct names.
▪ Identifiers can be composed of almost any combination of letters, numerals, and underscore characters.
▪ An identifier cannot begin with a numeral and that there are 33 specially reserved words
that cannot be used as identifiers:
7
Types
▪ Python is a dynamically typed language
▪ There is no advance declaration associating an identifier with a particular data type.
▪ An identifier can be associated with any type of object
▪ It can later be reassigned to another object of the same (or different) type.
▪ Although an identifier has no declared type, the object to which it refers has a definite type.
▪ In our first example, the characters 98.6 are recognized as a floating-point literal,
and thus the identifier temperature is associated with an instance of the float class having that value.
8
Objects
▪ The process of creating a new instance of a class is known as instantiation.
▪ To instantiate an object we usually invoke the constructor of a class:
w = Widget()
▪ This is assuming that the constructor does not require any parameters.
▪ If the constructor does require parameters, we might use a syntax such as
w = Widget(a, b, c)
▪ Many of Python’s built-in classes a literal form for designating new instances. For example, the command
temperature = 98.6
▪ results in the creation of a new instance of the float class.
9
Calling Methods
▪ Python supports functions a syntax such as
sorted(data)
▪ in which case data is a parameter sent to the function.
▪ Python’s classes may also define one or more methods (also known as member functions),
▪ which are invoked on a specific instance of a class using the dot (“.”) operator.
▪ For example, Python’s list class has a method named sort that can be invoked with a syntax such as
[Link]( )
▪ This particular method rearranges the contents of the list so that they are sorted.
10
Built-In Classes
▪ A class is immutable if each object of that class has a fixed value upon instantiation
that cannot subsequently be changed.
▪ For example, the float class is immutable.
11
The bool class
▪ The bool class is used for logical (Boolean) values,
and the only two instances of that class are expressed as the literals:
True and False
▪ The default constructor, bool(), returns False.
▪ Python allows the creation of a Boolean value from a non-boolean type using the syntax
bool(foo)
▪ for value foo.
▪ The interpretation depends upon the type of the parameter.
▪ Numbers evaluate to False if zero, and True if nonzero.
▪ Sequences and other container types, such as strings and lists, evaluate to False if empty and True if
nonempty.
12
The int class
▪ The int class is designed to represent integer values with arbitrary magnitude.
▪ Python automatically chooses the internal representation for an integer based upon the magnitude of its value.
▪ The integer constructor, int(), returns 0 by default.
▪ This constructor can also construct an integer value based upon an existing value of another type.
▪ If f represents a floating-point value, the syntax int(f) produces the truncated value of f.
▪ For example, int(3.14) produces the value 3, while int(−3.9) produces the value −3.
▪ The constructor can also be used to parse a string that represents an integer.
▪ For example, the expression int(‘137’) produces the integer value 137.
13
The float class
▪ The float class is the floating-point type in Python.
▪ The floating-point equivalent of an integral number 2, can be expressed directly as 2.0.
▪ One other form of literal for floating-point values uses scientific notation.
▪ For example, the literal 6.022e23 represents the mathematical value 6.022×10^23.
▪ The constructor float() returns 0.0.
▪ When given a parameter, the constructor, float, returns the equivalent floating-point value.
▪ float(2) returns the floating-point value 2.0
▪ float(‘3.14’) returns 3.14
14
The list class
▪ A list instance stores a sequence of objects, that is, a sequence of
references (or pointers) to objects in the list.
▪ Elements of a list may be arbitrary objects (including the None object).
▪ Lists are array-based sequences and a list of length n has elements indexed from 0 to n−1 inclusive.
▪ Lists have the ability to dynamically expand and contract their capacities as needed.
▪ Python uses the characters [] as delimiters for a list literal.
▪ [] is an empty list.
▪ [‘red’, ‘green’, ‘blue’] is a list containing three string instances.
▪ The list() constructor produces an empty list by default.
▪ The list constructor will accept any iterable parameter.
▪ list(‘hello’) → list of characters [‘h’, ‘e’, ‘l’, ‘l’, ‘o’].
15
The tuple class
▪ The tuple class provides an immutable (unchangeable) version of a sequence,
which allows instances to have an internal representation that may be more
streamlined than that of a list.
▪ Parentheses delimit a tuple.
▪ The empty tuple is ()
▪ To express a tuple of length one as a literal, a comma must be placed after the element,
but within the parentheses.
▪ For example, (17,) is a one-element tuple.
16
The str class
▪ String literals can be enclosed in single quotes, as in ‘hello’, or double quotes, as in "hello"
▪ A string can also begin and end with three single or double quotes, if it contains newlines in it.
17
The set class
▪ Python’s set class represents a set, namely a collection of elements, without duplicates, and without an
inherent order to those elements.
▪ Only instances of immutable types can be added to a Python set. Therefore, objects such as integers, floating-
point numbers, and character strings are eligible to be elements of a set.
▪ The frozenset class is an immutable form of the set type, itself.
▪ Python uses curly braces { and } as delimiters for a set
▪ For example, {17} or {‘red’, ‘green’, ‘blue’}
▪ The exception to this rule is that { } does not represent an empty set.
▪ Instead, the constructor set() returns an empty set.
18
The dict class
▪ Python’s dict class represents a dictionary, or mapping, from a set
of distinct keys to associated values.
▪ Python implements a dict using an almost identical approach to that of a set,
but with storage of the associated values.
▪ The literal form {} produces an empty dictionary.
▪ A nonempty dictionary is expressed using a comma-separated series of key:value pairs. For example, the
dictionary {‘ga’ : ‘Irish’, ‘de’ : ‘German’} maps ‘ga’ to ‘Irish’ and ‘de’ to ‘German’.
▪ Alternatively, the constructor accepts a sequence of key-value pairs as a parameter,
as in dict(pairs) with pairs = [(‘ga’, ‘Irish’), (‘de’, ‘German’)].
19
Expressions and Operators
▪ Existing values can be combined into expressions using special symbols
and keywords known as operators.
▪ The semantics of an operator depends upon the type of its operands.
▪ For example, when a and b are numbers, the syntax a + b indicates addition,
while if a and b are strings, the operator + indicates concatenation.
20
Logical Operators
▪ Python supports the following keyword operators for Boolean values:
▪ The and and or operators short-circuit, in that they do not evaluate the second operand
if the result can be determined based on the value of the first operand.
21
Equality Operators
▪ Python supports the following operators to test two notions of equality:
▪ The expression, a is b, evaluates to True, precisely when
identifiers a and b are aliases for the same object.
▪ The expression a == b tests a more general notion of equivalence.
22
Comparison Operators
▪ Data types may define a natural order via the following operators:
▪ These operators have expected behavior for numeric types,
and are defined lexicographically, and case-sensitively, for strings.
23
Arithmetic Operators
▪ Python supports the following arithmetic operators:
▪ For addition, subtraction, and multiplication, if both operands have type int,
then the result is an int;
if one or both operands have type float, the result is a float.
▪ True division is always of type float, integer division is always int (with the result truncated)
24
Sequence Operators
▪ Each of Python’s built-in sequence types (str, tuple, and list) support
the following operator syntaxes:
25
Sequence Comparisons
▪ Sequences define comparison operations based on lexicographic order,
performing an element by element comparison until the first difference is found.
▪ For example, [5, 6, 9] < [5, 7] because of the entries at index 1.
26
Operators for Sets
▪ sets and frozensets support the following operators:
27
Operators for Dictionaries
▪ The supported operators for objects of type dict are as follows:
28
Operators Precedence
29
Functions and Control Flow
30
Program Structure
▪ Common to all control structures, the colon(:) character is used to
delimit the beginning of a block of code that acts as a body for a control structure.
▪ If the body can be stated as a single executable statement, it can technically
placed on the same line, to the right of the colon.
▪ However, a body is more typically typeset as an indented block starting
on the line following the colon.
▪ Python relies on the indentation level to designate the extent of that block of code,
or any nested blocks of code within.
31
Conditionals
32
Loops
▪ while loop:
▪ for loop:
▪ Indexed for loop:
33
Break and Continue
▪ Python supports a break statement that immediately terminate a while or for loop
when executed within its body.
▪ Python also supports a continue statement that causes the current iteration of a loop body to stop, but with
subsequent passes of the loop proceeding as expected.
34
Functions
▪ Functions are defined using the keyword def.
▪ This establishes a new identifier as the name of the function (count, in this example),
and it establishes the number of parameters that it expects, which defines the function’s signature.
▪ The return statement returns the value for this function and terminates its processing.
35
Information Passing
▪ Parameter passing in Python follows the semantics of the standard assignment statement.
▪ For example
▪ is the same as
▪ and results in
36
Simple Output
▪ The built-in function, print, is used to generate standard output to the console.
▪ In its simplest form, it prints an arbitrary sequence of arguments, separated by spaces,
and followed by a trailing newline character.
▪ For example, the command print(‘maroon’, 5) outputs the string ‘maroon 5\n’.
▪ A nonstring argument x will be displayed as str(x).
37
Simple Input
▪ The primary means for acquiring information from the user console is
a built-in function named input.
▪ This function displays a prompt, if given as an optional parameter, and then waits until the user enters some
sequence of characters followed by the return key.
▪ The return value of the function is the string of characters that were entered strictly before the return key.
▪ Such a string can immediately be converted, of course:
38
A Simple Program
▪ Here is a simple program that does some input and output:
39
Files
▪ Files are opened with a built-in function, open, that returns an object for the underlying file.
▪ For example, the command, fp = open(‘[Link]’), attempts to open
a file named [Link].
▪ Methods for files:
40
Exception Handling
▪ Exceptions are unexpected events that occur during the execution of a program.
▪ An exception might result from a logical error or an unanticipated situation.
▪ In Python, exceptions (also known as errors) are objects that are raised (or thrown) by code that encounters an
unexpected circumstance.
▪ The Python interpreter can also raise an exception.
▪ A raised error may be caught by a surrounding context that “handles” the exception in an appropriate fashion.
▪ If uncaught, an exception causes the interpreter to stop executing the program and to report an appropriate
message to the console.
41
Common Exceptions
▪ Python includes a rich hierarchy of exception classes that designate various categories of errors
42
Raising an Exception
▪ An exception is thrown by executing the raise statement, with an appropriate
instance of an exception class as an argument that designates the problem.
▪ For example, if a function for computing a square root is sent a negative value as a parameter,
it can raise an exception with the command:
43
Catching and Exception
▪ In Python, exceptions can be tested and caught using a try-except control structure.
▪ In this structure, the try block is the primary code to be executed.
▪ Although it is a single command in this example, it can more generally be a larger block of indented code.
▪ Following the try-block are one or more “except” cases, each with an identified error type and an indented
block of code that should be executed if the designated error is raised within the try-block.
44
Iterators
▪ Basic container types, such as list, tuple, and set, qualify as iterable types, which allows them to be used as
an iterable object in a for loop.
▪ An iterator is an object that manages an iteration through a series of values.
▪ If variable i, identifies an iterator object, then each call to the built-in function, next(i), produces a
subsequent element from the underlying series, with a StopIteration exception raised to indicate that there
are no further elements.
▪ An iterable is an object, obj, that produces an iterator via the syntax iter(obj).
45
Generators
▪ The most convenient technique for creating iterators in Python is through the use of generators.
▪ A generator is implemented with a syntax that is very similar to a function, but instead of returning values, a yield
statement is executed to indicate each element of the series.
▪ For example, a generator for the factors of n:
46
Conditional Expressions
▪ Python supports a conditional expression syntax that can replace a simple control structure.
▪ The general syntax is an expression of the form:
▪ This compound expression evaluates to expr1 if the condition is True,
and otherwise evaluates to expr2.
▪ For example:
▪ Or even
47
Comprehension Syntax
▪ A very common programming task is to produce one series of values based
upon the processing of another series.
▪ Often, this task can be accomplished quite simply in Python using what is known as a comprehension syntax.
▪ This is the same as
48
Packing
▪ If a series of comma-separated expressions are given in a larger context,
they will be treated as a single tuple, even if no enclosing parentheses are provided.
▪ For example, consider the assignment
▪ This results in identifier, data, being assigned to the tuple (2, 4, 6, 8).
▪ This behavior is called automatic packing of a tuple.
49
Unpacking
▪ As a dual to the packing behavior, Python can automatically unpack a sequence,
allowing one to assign a series of individual identifiers to the elements of sequence.
▪ As an example, we can write
▪ This has the effect of assigning a = 7, b = 8, c = 9, and d = 10.
50
Modules
▪ Beyond the built-in definitions, the standard Python distribution includes perhaps tens of thousands
of other values, functions, and classes that are organized in additional libraries,
known as modules, that can be imported from within a program.
51
Existing Modules
▪ Some useful existing modules include the following:
52
Thank you!
choye@[Link]