Python

Actions in Python:

An algorithm must be expressed in Python as a sequence of

“actions”

Purpose of actions:

• Creating or modifying data: These actions take in data, perform

sequential, conditional, or repetitive execution on the data and
produce other data.

• Interacting with the environment: Our solutions will usually

involve interacting with the user or the peripherals of the
computer to take in (input) data or take out (output) data.

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Types of actions:

Expression: An expression (e.g., 3 + 4 * 5) specifies a calculation

which, when evaluated (performed), yields some data as a result.

An expression can consist of:

• basic data (integer, floating point, Boolean, etc.) or

container data (e.g., string, list, set, etc.).

• expressions involving operations among data and other

expressions.

• functions acting on expressions.

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Types of actions:

Statement: Unlike an expression, a statement does not return data

as a result. It can either be basic or compound.

• Basic statement: A basic statement can be, e.g., for

storing the result of an expression in a memory location
(an assignment statement for further use in subsequent
actions), deleting an item from a collection of data, etc.
Each statement has its special syntax that generally
involves a special keyword.

• Compound statement: Compound statements are

composed of statements, and control the execution of
those statements in some way.

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Naming and Printing Data

Variables: Name to data and use that name to access it

Printing data: Python provides the print() function to display data

items on the screen:

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Basic data in Python: Numbers
 Integers (e.g., 73)
 Floating point numbers (e.g., 73., 6.8e-6)
 Complex numbers (e.g., 2-5j)

From Python version 3, integers do not have fixed-size representation,

and their size is only limited by available memory

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Basic data in Python: Numbers

As for the float type, Python uses the 64-bit IEEE 754 standard which
can represent numbers in the range
[2.2250738585072014E-308, 1.7976931348623157E+308].

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Basic data in Python: Numbers

abs(<Number>): Absolute value of the number

pow(<Number1>, <Number2>): Power

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Basic data in Python: Numbers

round(<FloatNumber>): Rounds the floating point number to the

closest integer

Functions from the math library: sqrt(), sin(), cos(), log(), etc

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Basic data in Python: Booleans

Python provides the bool data type which allows only two values:
True and False
 Comparison operations
 Logical operations
• 0 (the integer zero)
• 0.0 (the floating-point number zero)
• "" (the empty string)
• [] (the empty list)
• {} (the empty dictionary)
are interpreted as False.

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Basic data in Python: Booleans

With Boolean values, we can use the “not” (negation or inverse),

“and”, and “or” operations.

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Container data in Python: (str, tuple, list, dict, set)

String (str): A string can hold a sequence of characters or only a

single character. A string cannot be modified after creation.

List (list): A list can hold ordered sets of all data types in Python
(including another list). The elements of a list can be modified after
creation.

Tuple (tuple): The tuple type is very similar to the list type, but the
elements cannot be modified after creation (similar to strings).

Dictionary (dict): A very efficient data type that implements a

mapping from a set of numbers, Booleans, strings, and tuples to
any set of data in Python. Dictionaries are easily modifiable and
extendable

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Container data in Python: (str, tuple, list, dict, set)

Mutability Versus Immutability

 Some container types are created as “frozen”. After creating

them, you can completely destroy them, but you cannot change
or delete their individual elements. This is called immutability.

 Strings and tuples are immutable, whereas lists, dictionaries,

and sets are mutable. With a mutable container, it is possible to
add new elements and change or delete existing ones.

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Accessing Elements in Sequential Containers

string, list, and tuple, are called sequential containers

Index starts from 0 in Python

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Accessing Elements in Sequential Containers
string, list, and tuple, are called sequential containers

• Start index is first to be accessed.

• End index is where accessing stops (element at end index is
not accessed—that is, the end index is not inclusive).
• After element at [start] is accessed first, [start + increment] is
accessed next. This goes on until the accessed position is
equal to or greater than the end index.
• For negative indexing, a negative increment has to work from
the bigger index towards the lesser, so (start index > end index)
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Accessing Elements in Sequential Containers

Number of elements: For all containers, len() is a built-in function

that returns the count of elements in the container that is given as
argument to it

Concatenation: String, tuple, and list data types can be combined

using the “+” operation

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Accessing Elements in Sequential Containers

Repetition: String, tuple, and list data types can be repeated using
the “*” operation

Membership: All containers can be checked for whether they

contain a certain item as an element using in and not in operations

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String in Python
 A string is denoted by enclosing the character sequence
between a pair of quotes (’Example String’) or double quotes
("Example String").

 A string surrounded with triple double quotes ("""Example

String""") allows you to have any combination of quotes and line
breaks within a sequence and Python will still view it as a single
entity.

"Hello World!"
’Hello World!’
’He said: "Hello World!" and walked towards the house.’
"A"
"""
Andrew said:
"Come here, doggy".
The dog barked in reply: ’woof’
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String in Python

 The backslash (\) is a special character in Python strings, also

known as the escape character. It is used in representing
certain, the so-called, unprintable characters: \t is a tab, \n is a
newline,etc

 For example, \’ is the single quote character. ’It\’s raining’

therefore is a valid string and equivalent to "It’s raining".

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String in Python

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Examples with string in Python

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Examples with string in Python

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Examples with string in Python

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Examples with string in Python

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Examples with string in Python

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Examples with string in Python
In addition to using quotes for string creation, str() function can be
used to create a string from its argument

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Examples with string in Python
Evaluating a string:

Deletion and Insertion from/to Strings

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Examples with string in Python

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Examples with string in Python

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Lists in Python:
Lists are created by enclosing elements into a pair of brackets and
separating them with commas, e.g., ["this", "is", "a", "list"].

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Tuples in Python:

Tuples are created by enclosing elements into a pair of parentheses,

e.g., ("this", "is", "a", "tuple")

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Lists and Tuples in Python:

There is no restriction on the elements of lists and tuples: They

can be any data (basic or container); tuples can become list
members as well, or vice versa

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Lists and Tuples in Python:

Deletion from lists

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Lists and Tuples in Python:

Insertion into lists

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Lists and Tuples in Python:

Insertion into lists

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Lists and Tuples in Python:

Concatenation, repetition, and membership with lists and tuples:

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Lists and Tuples in Python:

How would you store the coefficient matrix of the following system
of equations?

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Dictionaries in Python:
A list, tuple, or string data type stores a certain element at each
numerical index. Similarly, a dictionary stores an element (value)
for each key (non-numeric). In other words, a dictionary is just a
mapping from keys to values

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Dictionaries in Python:
A dictionary is represented as key–value pairs, each separated by
a colon sign (:) and all enclosed in a pair of curly braces.

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Dictionaries in Python:

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Dictionaries in Python:

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Expressions in Python:

Expressions such as 3 + 4 describe calculation of an operation

among data. When an expression is evaluated, operations in the
expression are applied to data specified in expression using
operators and a resulting value is provided.

Operator
Operand

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Expressions in Python:
Operations:

• Arithmetic (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division,

exponentiation)

• logic (and, or, not)

• container (indexing, membership)

• comparison (less, less-than, equality, non-equality, greater,

greater-than)

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Expressions in Python:

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Expressions in Python:

• Python compares lists lexicographically, just like strings

• Comparison is done element by element, from left to right, until

a difference is found, or one list is exhausted

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Expressions in Python: Precedence and Associativity

• Operator Precedence tells us which operators should be

evaluated first in an expression

• Associativity determines the direction in which operators with

the same precedence are evaluated
Increasing precedence

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Expressions in Python: Precedence and Associativity

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Implicit and Explicit Type Conversion (Casting)

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Basic statements: Assignment Statement and Variables

• A variable is a placeholder (in memory) for information that can

be referenced and manipulated during program execution

• Variables act like containers that can store different types of

data values

• Unlike many programming languages, Python does not require

explicit type declaration - the type is automatically inferred
based on the assigned value

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Basic statements: Assignment Statement and Variables

Single assignments

Single assignments

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Basic statements: Assignment Statement and Variables

Multiple Assignments

Multiple Assignments
with Different Values

Multiple Assignments
with Different Values

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Basic statements: Assignment Statement and Variables

Swapping Values of
Variables

Alternatively

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Basic statements: Assignment Statement and Variables

8.0

3 3

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Basic statements: Variables and Aliasing

Aliasing in Python occurs when two variables refer to same data (or
object) in memory, essentially creating a second name for an
existing piece of data

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Basic statements: Variables and Aliasing

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Basic statements: Variables and Aliasing

• Aliasing can be problematic with mutable objects like lists,

where changes to one variable will affect the other

• For immutable objects like strings and integers, aliasing is

generally safe

• To avoid unintended modifications, you can use techniques like

cloning (creating a new copy) for mutable objects

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Basic statements: Naming Variables

• Programmers usually choose a name for a variable such that

the name signifies what the content will be.

• In Python, variable names may be arbitrarily long. They may

contain letters (from the English alphabet), as well as numbers
and underscores, but they must start with a letter or an
underscore.

• While using uppercase letters is allowed, bear in mind that

programmers reserve starting with an upper case to
differentiate a property (i.e., scope) of the variable

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Basic statements: Guidelines for Naming Variables

• It is a better practice to name variables that reflect the value

they are going to store.

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Basic statements: Guidelines for Naming Variables

• Use “Single Responsibility Principle”

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Basic statements: Guidelines for Naming Variables

• Variable names should be pronounceable, making them easier

to remember.

• Use i, j, k, m, n only for counting: Programmers implicitly

recognize such variables as holding integers (for historical
reasons).

• Avoid the single character variable l as it can be easily

confused with 1 (one).

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Basic statements: Guidelines for Naming Variables

• If you are using multiple words as a variable name, choose one

of the following:

Make all words lowercase, combine them using _ as separator;

e.g., highest_midterm_grade, shortest_path_distance_up_to_now.

Capitalize the first letter of each word, except for the first, and
combine all words directly without using a separator; e.g.,
highestMidtermGrade, shortestPathDistanceUpToNow

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Basic statements: Reserved names in Python

• Reserved names cannot be used as variable names

• It is possible to use the name of a built-in function as a variable

name (e.g., len = 20). This, however, loses access to such a
built-in function until the interpreter is restarted.

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Basic statements: Action Input/Output

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Basic statements: Pass statement
pass statement in Python is a null statement used as a placeholder
for future code implementation.

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Basic statements: Data packaged in libraries
Python, like many high-level programming languages, provides a
wide spectrum of actions and data predefined and organized in
“packages” that are called as libraries.

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Basic statements: Data packaged in libraries

To find out what is available

in a library or any data item,
you can use the dir() function

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Basic statements: Actions from interpreter
Explore quit(), exit(), Ctrl+D options when you work with interpreter

How will run a python file from its interpreter? Explore

python3 [Link]

cat [Link]

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Basic statements: Writing actions into a file
How will run a python file from its interpreter using command-line
arguments?

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