1.

Python Overview
• Python is a high-level, interpreted, interactive and object
oriented-scripting language.

• Python was designed to be highly readable which uses

English keywords frequently where as other languages use
punctuation and it has fewer syntactical constructions than
other languages.
• Python is Interpreted: This means that it is processed at
runtime by the interpreter and you do not need to compile
your program before executing it. This is similar to PERL and
PHP.
• Python is Interactive: This means that you can actually sit at a
Python prompt and interact with the interpreter directly to
write your programs.
• Python is Object-Oriented: This means that Python supports
Object-Oriented style or technique of programming that
encapsulates code within objects.
• Python is Beginner's Language: Python is a great language for
the beginner programmers and supports the development of
a wide range of applications, from simple text processing to
WWW browsers to games.
Compiling and interpreting
• Many languages require you to compile (translate) your
program into a form that the machine understands.
compile execute
source code byte code output
Hello.java Hello.class

• Python is insteadinterpret
directly interpreted into machine
instructions.
source code output
Hello.py
History of Python:
• Python was developed by Guido van Rossum in the late
eighties and early nineties at the National Research Institute
for Mathematics and Computer Science in the Netherlands.
• Python is derived from many other languages, including ABC,
Modula-3, C, C++, Algol-68, SmallTalk, and Unix shell and
other scripting languages.
• Python is copyrighted, Like Perl, Python source code is now
available under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
• Python is now maintained by a core development team at the
institute, although Guido van Rossum still holds a vital role in
directing it's progress.
Python Features
• Easy-to-learn: Python has relatively few keywords, simple
structure, and a clearly defined syntax.
• Easy-to-read: Python code is much more clearly defined and
visible to the eyes.
• Easy-to-maintain: Python's success is that its source code is
fairly easy-to-maintain.
• A broad standard library: One of Python's greatest strengths
is the bulk of the library is very portable and cross-platform
compatible on UNIX, Windows, and Macintosh.
• Interactive Mode: Support for an interactive mode in which
you can enter results from a terminal right to the language,
allowing interactive testing and debugging of snippets of
code.
Python Features (cont’d)

• Portable: Python can run on a wide variety of hardware

platforms and has the same interface on all platforms.
• Extendable: You can add low-level modules to the Python
interpreter. These modules enable programmers to add to or
customize their tools to be more efficient.
• Databases: Python provides interfaces to all major
commercial databases.
• GUI Programming: Python supports GUI applications that can
be created and ported to many system calls, libraries, and
windows systems, such as Windows MFC, Macintosh, and the
X Window system of Unix.
• Scalable: Python provides a better structure and support for
large programs than shell scripting.
Python Environment
• Unix (Solaris, Linux, FreeBSD, AIX, HP/UX, SunOS, IRIX etc.)
• Win 9x/NT/2000
• Macintosh (PPC, 68K)
• OS/2
• DOS (multiple versions)
• PalmOS
• Nokia mobile phones
• Windows CE
• Acorn/RISC OS
• BeOS
• Amiga
• VMS/OpenVMS
• QNX
• VxWorks
• Psion
• Python has also been ported to the Java and .NET virtual machines.
2. Python - Basic Syntax
• Interactive Mode Programming:
>>> print "Hello, Python!";
Hello, Python!
>>> 3+4*5;
23
• Script Mode Programming :
Invoking the interpreter with a script parameter begins
execution of the script and continues until the script is
finished. When the script is finished, the interpreter is no
longer active.

For example, put the following in one test.py, and run,

print "Hello, Python!";
print "I love COMP3050!";

The output will be:

Hello, Python!
I love COMP3050!
Python Identifiers:
• A Python identifier is a name used to identify a variable,
function, class, module, or other object. An identifier starts
with a letter A to Z or a to z or an underscore (_) followed by
zero or more letters, underscores, and digits (0 to 9).
• Python does not allow punctuation characters such as @, $,
and % within identifiers. Python is a case sensitive
programming language. Thus Manpower and manpower are
two different identifiers in Python.
Python Identifiers (cont’d)

• Here are following identifier naming convention for Python:

– Class names start with an uppercase letter and all other
identifiers with a lowercase letter.
– Starting an identifier with a single leading underscore
indicates by convention that the identifier is meant to be
private.
– Starting an identifier with two leading underscores
indicates a strongly private identifier.
– If the identifier also ends with two trailing underscores,
the identifier is a language-defined special name.
Reserved Words:

Keywords contain lowercase letters only.

and exec not
assert finally or
break for pass
class from print
continue global raise
def if return
del import try
elif in while
else is with
except lambda yield
Lines and Indentation:
• One of the first caveats programmers encounter when
learning Python is the fact that there are no braces to
indicate blocks of code for class and function definitions or
flow control. Blocks of code are denoted by line indentation,
which is rigidly enforced.
• The number of spaces in the indentation is variable, but all
statements within the block must be indented the same
amount. Both blocks in this example are fine:
if True:
print "Answer“;
print "True" ;
else:
print "Answer“;
print "False"
Multi-Line Statements:

• Statements in Python typically end with a new line. Python

does, however, allow the use of the line continuation
character (\) to denote that the line should continue. For
example:
total = item_one + \
item_two + \
item_three
• Statements contained within the [], {}, or () brackets do not
need to use the line continuation character. For example:
days = ['Monday', 'Tuesday', 'Wednesday',
'Thursday', 'Friday']
Quotation in Python:
• Python accepts single ('), double (") and triple (''' or """)
quotes to denote string literals, as long as the same type of
quote starts and ends the string.
• The triple quotes can be used to span the string across
multiple lines. For example, all the following are legal:
word = 'word'
sentence = "This is a sentence."
paragraph = """This is a paragraph. It is made up
of multiple lines and sentences."""
Comments in Python:

• A hash sign (#) that is not inside a string literal begins a

comment. All characters after the # and up to the physical
line end are part of the comment, and the Python interpreter
ignores them.
Using Blank Lines:

• A line containing only whitespace, possibly with a comment,

is known as a blank line, and Python totally ignores it.
• In an interactive interpreter session, you must enter an
empty physical line to terminate a multiline statement.
Multiple Statements on a Single Line:

• The semicolon ( ; ) allows multiple statements on the single

line given that neither statement starts a new code block.
Here is a sample snip using the semicolon:
import sys; x = 'foo'; sys.stdout.write(x + '\n')
Multiple Statement Groups as Suites:

• Groups of individual statements making up a single code

block are called suites in Python.
Compound or complex statements, such as if, while, def, and
class, are those which require a header line and a suite.
Header lines begin the statement (with the keyword) and
terminate with a colon ( : ) and are followed by one or more
lines which make up the suite.
if expression :
suite
elif expression :
suite
else :
suite
3. Python - Variable Types

• Variables are nothing but reserved memory locations to store

values. This means that when you create a variable you
reserve some space in memory.
• Based on the data type of a variable, the interpreter allocates
memory and decides what can be stored in the reserved
memory. Therefore, by assigning different data types to
variables, you can store integers, decimals, or characters in
these variables.
Assigning Values to Variables:

• Python variables do not have to be explicitly declared to

reserve memory space. The declaration happens
automatically when you assign a value to a variable. The
equal sign (=) is used to assign values to variables.
counter = 100 # An integer assignment
miles = 1000.0 # A floating point
name = "John" # A string
print counter
print miles
print name
Multiple Assignment:

• You can also assign a single value to several variables

simultaneously. For example:
a = b = c = 1
a, b, c = 1, 2, "john"
Standard Data Types:

Python has five standard data types:

• Numbers
• String
• List
• Tuple
• Dictionary
Python Numbers:

• Number data types store numeric values. They are immutable

data types, which means that changing the value of a number
data type results in a newly allocated object.
• Number objects are created when you assign a value to them.
For example:
var1 = 1
var2 = 10
Python supports four different numerical types:
• int (signed integers)
• long (long integers [can also be represented in octal and
hexadecimal])
• float (floating point real values)
• complex (complex numbers)
Number Examples:

int long float complex

10 51924361L 0 3.14j
100 -0x19323L 15.2 45.j
-786 0122L -21.9 9.322e-36j
80 0xDEFABCECBDAECBFBAEl 32.3+e18 .876j
-490 535633629843L -90 -.6545+0J
-0x260 -052318172735L -3.25E+101 3e+26J
0x69 -4721885298529L 70.2-E12 4.53e-7j
Python Strings:

• Strings in Python are identified as a contiguous set of

characters in between quotation marks.
• Python allows for either pairs of single or double quotes.
Subsets of strings can be taken using the slice operator ( [ ]
and [ : ] ) with indexes starting at 0 in the beginning of the
string and working their way from -1 at the end.
• The plus ( + ) sign is the string concatenation operator, and
the asterisk ( * ) is the repetition operator.
Example:
str = 'Hello World!'
print str # Prints complete string
print str[0] # Prints first character of the string
print str[2:5] # Prints characters starting from 3rd to 6th
print str[2:] # Prints string starting from 3rd character
print str * 2 # Prints string two times
print str + "TEST" # Prints concatenated string

Output:
Hello World!
H
llo
llo World!
Hello World!Hello World!
Hello World!TEST
Python Lists:
• Lists are the most versatile of Python's compound data types.
A list contains items separated by commas and enclosed
within square brackets ([]).
• To some extent, lists are similar to arrays in C. One
difference between them is that all the items belonging to a
list can be of different data type.
• The values stored in a list can be accessed using the slice
operator ( [ ] and [ : ] ) with indexes starting at 0 in the
beginning of the list and working their way to end-1.
• The plus ( + ) sign is the list concatenation operator, and the
asterisk ( * ) is the repetition operator.
list = [ 'abcd', 786 , 2.23, 'john', 70.2 ]
tinylist = [123, 'john']

print list # Prints complete list

print list[0] # Prints first element of the list
print list[1:3] # Prints elements starting from 2nd till 3rd
print list[2:] # Prints elements starting from 3rd element
print tinylist * 2 # Prints list two times
print list + tinylist # Prints concatenated lists

Output:
['abcd', 786, 2.23, 'john', 70.2]
abcd
[786, 2.23]
[2.23, 'john', 70.2]
[123, 'john', 123, 'john']
['abcd', 786, 2.23, 'john', 70.2, 123, 'john']
Python Tuples:
• A tuple is another sequence data type that is similar to the
list. A tuple consists of a number of values separated by
commas. Unlike lists, however, tuples are enclosed within
parentheses.
• The main differences between lists and tuples are: Lists are
enclosed in brackets ( [ ] ), and their elements and size can
be changed, while tuples are enclosed in parentheses ( ( ) )
and cannot be updated. Tuples can be thought of as read-
only lists.
tuple = ( 'abcd', 786 , 2.23, 'john', 70.2 )
tinytuple = (123, 'john')

print tuple # Prints complete list

print tuple[0] # Prints first element of the list
print tuple[1:3] # Prints elements starting from 2nd till 3rd
print tuple[2:] # Prints elements starting from 3rd element
print tinytuple * 2 # Prints list two times
print tuple + tinytuple # Prints concatenated lists

OUTPUT:
('abcd', 786, 2.23, 'john', 70.2)
abcd
(786, 2.23)
(2.23, 'john', 70.2)
(123, 'john', 123, 'john')
('abcd', 786, 2.23, 'john', 70.2, 123, 'john')
Python Dictionary:

• Python 's dictionaries are hash table type. They work like
associative arrays or hashes found in Perl and consist of key-
value pairs.
• Keys can be almost any Python type, but are usually numbers
or strings. Values, on the other hand, can be any arbitrary
Python object.
• Dictionaries are enclosed by curly braces ( { } ) and values can
be assigned and accessed using square braces ( [] ).
dict = {}
dict['one'] = "This is one"
dict[2] = "This is two“
tinydict = {'name': 'john','code':6734, 'dept': 'sales'}
print dict['one'] # Prints value for 'one' key
print dict[2] # Prints value for 2 key
print tinydict # Prints complete dictionary
print tinydict.keys() # Prints all the keys
print tinydict.values() # Prints all the values

OUTPUT:
This is one
This is two
{'dept': 'sales', 'code': 6734, 'name': 'john'}
['dept', 'code', 'name']
['sales', 6734, 'john']
 Data Type Conversion:
Function Description
int(x [,base]) Converts x to an integer. base specifies the base if x is a string.
long(x [,base] ) Converts x to a long integer. base specifies the base if x is a
string.
float(x) Converts x to a floating-point number.
complex(real Creates a complex number.
[,imag])
str(x) Converts object x to a string representation.
repr(x) Converts object x to an expression string.
eval(str) Evaluates a string and returns an object.
tuple(s) Converts s to a tuple.
list(s) Converts s to a list.
set(s) Converts s to a set.
dict(d) Creates a dictionary. d must be a sequence of (key,value) tuples.
frozenset(s) Converts s to a frozen set.
chr(x) Converts an integer to a character.
unichr(x) Converts an integer to a Unicode character.
ord(x) Converts a single character to its integer value.
hex(x) Converts an integer to a hexadecimal string.
oct(x) Converts an integer to an octal string.
Operators in python

Arithmetic operators
Assignment operators
Comparison operators
Logical operators
Identity operators
Membership operators
Bitwise operators
 Python Arithmetic Operators

Operator Name Example

+ Addition x+y

- Subtraction x-y

* Multiplication x*y

/ Division x/y

% Modulus x%y

** Exponentiation x ** y

// Floor division x // y
 Python Assignment Operators

Operator Example Same As

= x=5 x=5
+= x += 3 x=x+3
-= x -= 3 x=x-3
*= x *= 3 x=x*3
/= x /= 3 x=x/3
%= x %= 3 x=x%3
//= x //= 3 x = x // 3
**= x **= 3 x = x ** 3
&= x &= 3 x=x&3
|= x |= 3 x=x|3
^= x ^= 3 x=x^3
 Python Comparison Operators

Operator Name Example

== Equal x == y

!= Not equal x != y

> Greater than x>y

< Less than x<y

>= Greater than or equal to x >= y

<= Less than or equal to x <= y

 Python Logical Operators

Operator Description Example

and  Returns True if both x < 5 and  x < 10
statements are true
or Returns True if one of x < 5 or x < 4
the statements is true
not Reverse the result, not(x < 5 and x <
returns False if the 10)
result is true
 Python Identity Operators

Operator Description Example

is  Returns True if both x is y
variables are the same
object
is not Returns True if both x is not y
variables are not the
same object
 Python Membership Operators

Operator Description Example

in  Returns True if a x in y
sequence with the
specified value is
present in the object
not in Returns True if a x not in y
sequence with the
specified value is not
present in the object
 Python Bitwise Operators

Opera Name Description

tor
&  AND Sets each bit to 1 if both bits are 1
| OR Sets each bit to 1 if one of two bits is 1
 ^ XOR Sets each bit to 1 if only one of two bits is 1
~  NOT Inverts all the bits
<< Zero fill Shift left by pushing zeros in from the right and let
left shift the leftmost bits fall off
>> Signed Shift right by pushing copies of the leftmost bit in
right from the left, and let the rightmost bits fall off
shift
 Python If ... Else

If statement:
a = 33
b = 200
if b > a:
  print("b is greater than a")
 Elif

The elif keyword is pythons way of saying "if

the previous conditions were not true, then try
this condition".
a = 33
b = 33
if b > a:
  print("b is greater than a")
elif a == b:
  print("a and b are equal")
a = 200
b = 33
if b > a:
  print("b is greater than a")
elif a == b:
  print("a and b are equal")
else:
  print("a is greater than b")
 Python For Loops

A for loop is used for iterating over a sequence

(that is either a list, a tuple, a dictionary, a set, or a
string).
fruits = ["apple", "banana", "cherry"]
for x in fruits:
  print(x)
 Looping Through a String

for x in "banana":
  print(x)

The break Statement

fruits =
["apple", "banana", "cherry"]
for x in fruits:
  print(x)
  if x == "banana":
    break
 The continue Statement

With the continue statement we can

stop the current iteration of the
loop, and continue with the next:

fruits =
["apple", "banana", "cherry"]
for x in fruits:
  if x == "banana":
    continue
  print(x)
 The range() Function

To loop through a set of code a specified

number of times, we can use
the range() function,
The range() function returns a sequence of
numbers, starting from 0 by default, and
increments by 1 (by default), and ends at a
specified number.

for x in range(6):
  print(x)
 Arrays

Arrays in Python are Data Structures that can

hold multiple values of the same type

Python list same as an Array?

Python Arrays and lists are store values in a
similar way. But there is a key difference
between the two i.e the values that they store. A
list can store any type of values such as intergers,
strings, etc. An arrays, on the other hand, stores
single data type values. Therefore, you can have
an array of integers, an array of strings, etc.
Typecode CType PythonType MinsizeinBy
te
‘I’ ‘signed int’ int 2
‘u’ unicode character 2
‘f float float 4
‘d’ double double 4
 Python Functions

A function is a block of code which only runs when it is

called.
You can pass data, known as parameters, into a function.

A function can return data as a

result.

Creating a Function

In Python a function is defined

using the def keyword:

def my_function():
  print("Hello from a function")
Types Of Python Functions
There are many types of Python Functions. And each of
them is very vital in its own way. The following are the
different types of Python Functions:
Python Built-in Functions
Python Recursion Functions
Python Lambda Functions
Python User-defined Functions
 What are Python Lambda
Functions?

Python Lambda functions are functions that do not

have any name. They are also known as
anonymous or nameless functions. The word
‘lambda’ is not a name, but its a keyword. This
keyword specifies that the function that follows is
anonymous.
 How to write Lambda Functions
in Python?

lambda arguments: expression

Python lambda function can have
any number of arguments but it
takes just one expression. The
inputs or arguments can start at 0
and go up to any limit. Just like any
other functions, it’s perfectly fine
to have lambda functions with no
inputs. Therefore, you can have
lambda functions in any of the
following formats:
EXAMPLE:
lambda : “Specify the purpose”
 Python Decorator

Decorators are one of the most helpful and powerful

tools of Python. These are used to modify the
behavior of the function. Decorators provide the
flexibility to wrap another function to expand the
working of wrapped function, without permanently
modifying it.

In Decorators, functions are passed as an

argument into another function and then
called inside the wrapper function.
def divide(x,y):  
    print(x/y)  
def smart_div(func):  
    def inner(x,y):  
        if(x<y):  
            x,y = y,x  
           return func(x,y)  
     return inner  
divide1 = smart_div(divide)  
divide1(2,4)  
 Syntactic Decorator

Python allows to use decorator in

easy way with @symbol

def smart_div(func):  
    def inner(x,y):  
        if(x<y):  
           x,y = y,x  
          return func(x,y)  
     return inner   
@smart_div  
def divide(x,y):  
     print(x/y)