I.

Python Crash Course

Introduction

 At the most fundamental level in the computer, there are instructions built into the hardware.
These are very simple instruction, peculiar to the hard ware of your particular type of the
computer. The instructions are designed to be simple for the hardware to executed, not for
humans to follow.
 Higher-level languages allow computer programmers to write instructions.
 No computer understands the high-level instruction directly, so it must be translated to
machine language.

Sample Program

 Sometimes a string at the beginning of a program is used as a documentation.

 Blank lines are included sometimes for human readability to separate logical parts. The
computer ignores the blank lines
 Using a triple quotes is the simplest method to let a long string split into different lines. You
will need to enclose it with a pair of triple quotes, one at the start and in the end. And
anything inside the enclosing triple quotes will become part of one multiline string.
 Sometimes inside a string there will be strings with braces in places a substitute string will be
inserted later. The substituted string will come from a custom dictionary that will contain the
user’s definition of these words. The words in braces indicate that they are rhe words in
dictionary. This custom dictionary will be created in the program and contain the user’s
definition of these words. The user’s definition will be substituted later in the format string
where each brace is currently.
 Def is short for definition of a function. This line is heading of a definition, which will make the
name of the string become defined as a short wat to refer to the sequence of sattements that
astart indented.

Whirlwind Introduction to Types and Functions

 Python directly recognizes a variety of types of data.

 Numbers – 3, 6, -7, 1.25
 Character Strings : ‘hello’, ‘the answer is: ‘
 Lists of objects of any type : [1,2,3,4], [‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘maybe’]
 A special datum meaning nothing : None
 Python has a large collection of built-in functions that operate on different kinds of data to
produce all kinds of results. To make a function do its action, parentheses are required. These
parentheses surround the parameter or parameters as in function in algebra class.
 The general syntax to execute a function is
 functionName(parameters)
 One function is called type, and it returns the type of any object.
 The word class is basically a synonym for type in python.
 Strings and lists are both sequences of parts (characters or elements). WE can find the length
of that sequence with other function with the abbreviated name len.
 Some functions have no parameters, so nothing goes between the parentheses. For example,
some types serve as no parameter functions to create as simple value of their type.
 list()
 Functions may also take more than one parameter
 max(5, 11, 2)
 max is short for maximum
Integer Arithmetic

Multiplication, Parentheses & Precedence

 Python understands numbers and standard arithmetic.

 Python should evaluate and print back the value of each expression.
 For multiplication we will use the * symbol instead.
 Python uses the normal precedence of arithmetic operations: Multiplications and divisions are
done before addition and subtraction unless there are parentheses.
 Python is smart enough to know that opening parentheses are always followed by the same
number of closing parentheses.

Division & Remainders

 Python uses the doubled division symbol // for the operation that produces just the integer
quotient, and introduces the symbol % for the operation of finding the remainder.
 We can use the / division symbol to get the float answer of a division.
 The remainder operation is defined for all integers, even a negative divisor.
Dividend = quotient * Divisor + Remainder
Remainder = Dividend – quotient * Divisor
 With positive numbers the integer quotient is always no bigger than the real quotient. And
python requires that this is true, no matter what the signs of the operands:

Strings Part I

 Strings of characters are another important type in python.

 A string in python is a sequence of characters. For python to recognize a sequence of
characters as a string, it must be enclosed in quotes to delimit the string.
 We should note that the interpreter gives back the string with single quotes. So whether we
use single or double quotes, the output from the interpreter will always be in singe quotation.
And having our choice of delimiters can be handy.
 A string can have any number of characters in it, including 0. The empty string is ‘ ‘.
 Strings can include any characters, including digits. Quotes turns even digits into strings.
 Strings also have operational symbols.
 The plus operation with strings means concatenate the strings.
 Multiplication also works with strings.
 With mixed string and int types, python sees an ambiguous expression, and does not guess
which you want – it just gives an error.
 Traceback error occurs when the code us being executed and it will show the python line
where the error was found and the reason for error. This error notifications are worth checking
out

Variables & Assignment

 A variable is a name for a value.

 An assignment statement associates a variable name on the left of the equal sign with the
value of an expression calculated from the right of equal sign.
 Once a variable is assigned a value, the variable can e used in place of that value. The
response to the expression of the variable is the same as if its value had been entered.
 The interpreter does not print a value after an assignement statement because the value of the
expression on the right is not lost. It can be recovered if we like.
  The equal sign is an unfortunate choice of the symbol for assignment, since python’s usage is
not the mathematical usage of the equal sign. Since = in mathematics is an equation is an
assertion that both sides of the equal sign are already, in fact equal.
 Python’s assignment statement forces the variable on the left hand side to become associated
with the value of the expression on the right side.
 We must always remember that the left-hand side must always be a variable, to which the
assignment is made.
 In the assignment statement, the expression on the right is evaluated first. So for the width
example, width was associated with its original value 10, so width + 5 had a value of 10 + 5,
which is 15. That value was then assigned to the variable on the left(width again) to give it a
new value.

Literals & Identifiers

 Expressions like 27 or ‘hello’ are called literals coming from the fact they literally mean
exactly what they say. They are distinguished from variables who value is not directly
determined by their name.
 The sequence of characters used to form a variable name ( and names for other python entities
later) is called an identifier. It identifies a python variable or other entity.
 There are some restrictions on the character sequence that make up an identifier.
The characters must all be letters, digits, or underscores, and must start with a
letter. Punctuation and blanks are not allowed.
There are some words that are reserved for special use in python. We may not
use these words as our own identifiers. They are easy to recognize in idle
because they are automatically colored orange.
 There are also identifiers that are automatically defined in python, and that you could
redefine, but you probably should not unless you really know what you are doing!
 Python is case sensitive. The identifiers last, Last, LaSt are all different. Be sure to be
consistent.
 What is legal is distinct from what is conventional or good practice or recommended. Meaning
names for variables are important for the humans who are looking at programs, understanding
them, and revising them. Things we can do to make our programs easily readable by others
include:
Underscore separated: putting underscores in places if blanks
Using camel-case, omitting spaces and using all lowercase, except capitalizing
all words after the first

Print Function Part I

 Python interpreter can help us type an expression and immediately see the result of its
evaluation. We can use this to test out syntax and maybe do simple calculator calculations.
 In a program run from a file, if you want your program to display something, you can give
explicit instructions with the print functions.
 The print function will print as strings everything in a comma-separated sequence of
expressions, and it will separate the results with single blanks, and advance to the next line at
the end, by default. Note that you can mix types: anything that is not already a string is
automatically converted to its string representation.
 We can also use it with no parameters like, print(), to only advance to the next line.

Strings Part II

 Triple quoted string Literals

 Strings delimited by one character, like ‘, are required to lie within a single
python line. It is sometimes convenient to have a multi-line string, which can
delimited with triple quotes ’ ’ ’.
The line structure is preserved in a multi-line string. This will allow us to
embed both single and double quote characters.
 Escape Codes
An alternate way to encode the string internally in python using escape codes.
Escape codes are embedded inside string literals and start with a backslash
character \.
They are used to embed characters that are either unprintable or have a
special syntactic meaning to python that you want suppress. Some examples of
escape codes include
o \ \ - \ (backslash)
o \ n - newline
o \’ - ‘ (single quote character)
o \” - “ (double quote character)
The newline character indicates further text will appear on a new line when
printed. When you use print function, you get the actual printed meaning of
the escape coded character.

The idle Editor & Execution

 Loading a program in the idle editor, and Running it

You can put a longer collections of instructions together by creating a text file
and running the python interpreter on the file. Idle simplifies that process.
 The classic First Program
It is the contents of the foreground idle window that get saved. You are
unlikely to mean to save the contents of the shell window, but it is easy for
that window to have the focus when you mean to save a program in an edit
window.
Syntax coloring: if you look in the editor, we can see that our text us color
coded the editor will color different parts of the python sytntax in special
colors.
To the interpreter, a program source file is a python module. We will tend to
use the more general term: a program file is a module. Note the term from the
menu when running the program.
We should distinguish a program code from a shell text: it is easy to confuse
the shell and edit windos. Make sure you keep them straight. The program in
just the line that you typed into the edit window and saved. When you an the
program in idle, you will see the results in shell.
The three lines are not a program you save in a file and run. Thi sis just an
exchange in the shell, with its >>> prompts, individual line to execute, and the
response. The lines with no >>> entered into the edit window forms a program
you can save and run. The >>> prompts have no place in a python program file.
 Program Documentation String
Python has a special feature: if the beginning of a program is just a quoted
string, that string is taken to be the program’s documentation string.
Just for completeness of illustration in this program , another form of comment
is also shown, a comment that starts with the symbole # and extends to the
end of the line. The python interpreter completely ignores this form of
comment. Such a comment is only added for a better human understanding.
Input & Output

 The input function

Programs are only going to be reused if they act on a variety of data. One way
to get data is directly from the user.
In python idle editor and shell, first it prints the string you give as a parameter
and then it waits for a line to be typed in and returns the string of characters
you typed. Program this value s assigned to the variable person, for use the
later.
o The parameter inside the parentheses after input is important. It sis prompt,
prompting you that keyboard input is expected at that point, and hopefully indicating
what us being requested. Without the prompt, the used would not know what was
happening, and the computer would just sit there waiting.
o We should remember that the statements are executed in the order that they appear in
the text of the program: sequentially. This is the simplest way for the execution of the
program to flow. You will see instructions later that natural flow.
o Print with Keyword parameter sep
One way to put punctuation but no space is by using the plus operator. Another
approach is to change the default separator between fields in the print
function. This will introduce a new syntax feature, keyword parameters. The
print function has a keyword parameter named sep. If you leave it out of a call
to print, as we have so far, it is set equal to space by default. If you add a final
field, sep=’ ‘, in the print function.
o Numbers and strings and Digits
When we write a program that uses a variable input for addition, we have to be
careful that we don concatenation.
Needing to convert strings input to numbers is a common situation, both with
keyboard input and later in webpages.
We can change the input strings into integer immediately.
The simple programs follow a basic programming patterns: input-calculate-
output.
 Get all data first
 Calculate with it second
 Output the result
o String Format Operation
Python has a construction called fill-in-the-braces. There is a particular
operation on strings called format, that makes substitutions into places
enclosed in braces.
First method calling syntax for object is used.
All data in python are objects, including strings.
Objects have a special syntax for functions, called methods, associated with
the particular type of object. In particular str objects have a method called a
format. The syntax for methods has the object followed by a period followed
by the method name, and any further parameters in parantheses,
 Object.methodname (parameters)
The string for the format method has a special form, with braces embedded.
Places where braces are embededded are replaced by the value on the syntax
between the braces. IN this case we use the syntax where the first (and only)
location in the string with braces has a substitution made from the first ( and
only) parameters.
We can assign a new string to an identifier and then print the string.
The identifier will be introduced to break the operations into a clearer
sequence of steps.
We can combine pieces with the + operator, but then all pieces must be
strings or explicitly converted to strings.
 An advantage of the format method is that it will convert types to strings
automatically, like the print function.
A technical point: since braces have special meaning ina format string, there
must be a special rule if you want braces to actually be included in the final
formatted string. The rule is to double the braces: ‘ { {‘ and ‘} }’.

Defining Functions of your Own

 Syntax Template Typography

o When new python syntax is introduced, the usual approach will be to give both specific
examples and general templates. In general templates for python syntax the typeface
indicates the category of each part

 A first function definition

o In python we associate a name and what a program does by using a function definition.
We use the python def keyword, short for define.
o There are several parts of the syntax for a function definition to notice:
Line 1: The heading contains def, the name of the function, parentheses, and
finally a colon. A more general syntax is
 Def function_name () :
Line 2 - 5: The remaining lines form the function and are intended by a
consistent amount. (The exact amount is not important to the interpreter,
though 2 or 4 spaces are common conventions.)
The whole definition does just that: defines the meaning of the name, but it
does not do anything else yet – for example, the definition itself does not
make anything be printed yet. This is our first example of altering the order of
execution of statements from the normal sequential order.
The statements in the function definition are not executed as python first
passes over the lines.
A function alter execution order in several ways: by statements not being
executed as the definition is first read, and then when the function is called
during execution, jumping to the function code , and back at the end of the
function execution.
o Multiple function Definitions
If we want the program to do anything automatically when it is runs, we need
one line outside of definition! The final line is the only one directly executed,
and it calls the code in main, which in turn calls the code in the other two
functions.
 Function Parameters
o Python workds something like that, but with its own syntax. The term of a parameter
serves as a stand in for the actual data that will be used. The function definition
indicates that the variable name person will be used inside the function by inserting it
between the parentheses of the definition. Then in the body of the definition of the
fuction, person is used in place of the real data for any specific person’s name.
o The last two lines of the program (double Birthday), again are the only ones outside of
the definitions, so they are the only ones executed directly. There is now na actual
name between name between parentheses in the function call. The value between the
parentheses here in the function call is d=referred to as an argument or actual
parameter of the function call. The argument supplies the actual data to be used in the
function execution. When the call is made, python does this by associating the formal
parameter name with the actual data as in an assignment statement. In the first call,
this actual data is ‘Emily’.
 o It is essential to understand the difference between
Defining a function with the def heading including formal parameter names,
where the code is merely instruction to be remembered , not acted on
immediately.
Calling a function with actual parameters values to be substituted for the
formal parameters and have function code actually run when the instructions
containing the call is run. Also note that the function can be called multiple
times with different expressions as the actual parameters.
o The beauty of this system is that the same function definition can be used for a call
with different actual parameter, and rhen have a different effect.
o This is the power of abstraction. It is one application of the most important principal in
programming. Rather than have a number of separately coded parts with only slight
variations, see where it is appropriate to combine them using a function whose
parameters refer to the parts that are different in different situations. Then the code
is written to be simultaneously appropriate for the separate specific situations, with
the substitutions of the right parameter values.
o We can combine function parameters with user input and have the program be able to
function for anyone. We should remember that.
There are more than one way to get information into a function.
 Have a value passed in through a parameter
 Prompt the user, and obtain data from the keyboard.
It is a good idea to separate the internal processing of data from the user by
the use of distinct functions.
Besides literal values, an actual parameter can be an expression. The
expression is evaluated before it is passed in the function call. One of the
simplest expressions is a plain variable name, which is evaluated by replacing it
with its associated value. Since it is only the value of the actual parameter that
is passe, not any variable name, there is no need to have a variable name used
in an actual parameter match a formal parameter name.
 Multiple Function Parameters
o A function can have more than one parameter in a parameter list separated by
commas.
o The actual parameters in the function call are evaluated left to right, and then these
values are associated with the formal parameter names in the function definition, also
left to right.
o Functions provide extremely important functionality to programs, allowing tasks to be
defined once adnd performed repeatedly with different data. We MUST be able to see
the difference between formal parameters used to describe what is done inside the
function definition (like x and y in the definition of sumProblem) and the actual
parameters which substitute for the formal parameters when the function is executed.
The main method above uses three diffenret sets of actual parameters in three calls to
sumProblem.
 Returned Function Values
o Mathematical functions have a calculated values associated with them. Functions calls
in expressions get replaced during evaluation by the value of the function.
o A new python syntax a return statement can be used for functions that return a value.
The syntax is a the word return followed by an expression. Functions that return values
can be used in expressions, just like in math class. When an expression with a function
call is evaluated, the function call is effectively replaced temporarily by its returned
value. Inside the python function definition, the value to be returned is given by
expression in the return statement.
o Python functions can return any type of data, not just numbers, and there can be any
number of statements executed before the return statement.
 o Variables separator & result are given a value inside the function, but separator and
result are not among the formal parameters.
o Python does make every function return something. If there is nothing explicitly
returned, the special value None is returned.
o If you see a ‘None’ in your printed output whee you don’t not expect it, it is likely
that you have printed the return value of a function that did not return anything
explicitly!
o In general, functions do a single thing. You can easily combine a sequence of functions,
and you have more flexibility in the combinations if each does just one unified thing.
 Two roles: writer and consumer of function
o In much larger programs, functions are useful to manage complexity, splitting things up
into logically related, modest sized pieces.
o Programmers are both writers of functions and consumers of the other functions called
inside their functions. It is useful to keep those two roles separate
o The user of an already written functions needs to know:
The name of the function
The order and meaning of parameters
What is returned or produced by the function
o We use the work of python development team, alling functions that are built into the
language. You need to know the three facts about the functions you call. You do not
need to know exactly how the function accomplishes its purposes.
o And when we write a function we need to figure out exactly how to accomplish our
goal, name relevant variables, and write our code, which brings us to the next section.
 Local Scopes
o For the logic of writing functions, it is important that the writer of a function knows
the names of a variables inside the function.
o Python enforces theis idea with local scope rules: Variables names initialized and used
inside one function are invisible to other functions. Such variables are called local
variables.
 Global Constants
o Global variables are variables that are defined outside of any function definition.
o They are visible inside all of your functions. They have global scope.
o It is good programming practice to avoid defining global variables and instead to put
your variables inside functions and explicitly pass them as parameters where needed.
o One common exception is constants. A constant is name that you give a fixed data
value to, by assigning a value to the name only in a single assignment statement. You
can then use the name of the fixed data value in expressions later.
o By conventions, names for contants are all capital letters.
o Issues with global variables do not come up if they are only used as constants.
o Functions names defined at the yop-level also have a global scope. This is what allows
you to use one functions you defineid inside another functions you define.

Dictionaries

 Definition and Use of Dictionaries

o Python has a built in dictionary type called dict which is used to create dictionaries
with arbitrary definitions for character strings. It can be used for the common usage.
o First an empty dictionary is created using dict(), and it is assigned the descriptive
name.
o To refer to the definition for a word, you use the dictionary name, follow it by the
word inside square brackets. This notation can either be used on the left-hand side of
an assignment to make (or remake) a definition, or it can used in an expression( as in
the print functions), where its earlier definition is retrieved.
 Forexample spanish1.py program
 Spanish [‘hello’] = ‘hola’ - makes an entry in our Spanish dictionary for
hello – with a definition ‘hola’
 print(spanish[spanish[‘red]) – retreieves the definition for ‘red’.
o Spanish dictionary is defined at the top-level, the variable name is still defined after
the program runs
o Creating the dictionary is a well defined and quite different activity from the use of
the dictionary at the end of the code, so we can use the functions to encapsulate the
task of creating the dictionary.
o We should remember that
First, like whole files, functions can have a documentation string immediately
after the definition heading. It is a good idea to document the return value
The dictionary that is created is returned, but the local variable variable name
in the dunction is lost when the function terminates.
To remember the dictionary returned to main, it needs a name. the name does
not have to match the name used in createDictionary. The name dictionary is
descriptive.
o Python dictionaries are actually more general than the common use of dictionaries.
They do not have to associate words and their string definitions. They can associate
many types of objects with some arbitrary objects. The more general python
terminologies for word and definition are key and value. Given a key, you can look up
the corresponding value. The only restriction on the key is that it be an immutable
type. This means that a value of the kye’s type cannot be changed internally after it
initially created. Strings an dnumbers are immutable. A dictionary is mutable: its value
can be changed internally. (we can add new definitions to it)
 Dictionaries and String Formatting
o In the previous example, two strings are constructed and printed. The expression for
the two strings include a sequence of literal strings concatenated with interspersed
values from a dictionary.
 Dictionaries and Python Variables
o Dictionaries are central to the implementation of python. Each variable identifier is
associated with a particular value.
o These relationships are stored in dictionaries in python, and these dictionaries are
accessible to the used: you can use the functions all locals() to return a dictionary
containing all the current local variables names as keys and all their values as the
corresponding values. This dictionary can be used with the string format method, so
you can embed local variables names in a format string and use them very easily!
o In the arithDict.py, the variable names inside braces in formatStr, and the dictionary
reference used as the format parameter is ** locals().
o A string like formatStr is probably the most readable way to code the creation on a
string from a collection of literal strings and program values. The ending part of the
syntax, .format(**locals()), may appear a bit strange, but it is very useful! It clearly
indicate how values are embedded into the format string, and avoids having a log list
of parameters to format.

Loops & Sequences

 To keep the computer doing useful work, we need repetition, looping back over the same block
of code again and again. There are two python statement types to do that, for loops and while
loops.
 Two preliminaries
o The value of already defined variables can be updated. This will be important in loops.
To prepare for that we first follow how variables can be updated in an even simpler
situation, where statements are just executed in textual order.
 o Sequence types are used in for loops. We will look at the basic sequence type: list.
 Updating Variables.
o It is helpful to create a table that will track the order of execution will always be
clearer. In a simple sequential code, that follow the textual order of the program, we
can keep track of the current variables. And this will be called playing computer.
 The List type
o Lists are ordered sequences of arbitrary data. Lists are the first kind of data discussed
so far that are mutuable: the length of the sequence can be changed and elements
substituted.
o The basic forat is a square-bracket enclosed, comma-separated list of arbitrary data.
 The range Function, Part I
o There is a built-in function range, that can be used to automatically generate regular
arithmetic sequences.
o The range pattern for use is
range(sizeOfsequence)
o The syntax will generate the integer, one at a time, as needed. If you want to see all
the results at once as a list, you can convert to a list. The resulting sequence starts at
0 and ends before the paraemeter. One important propeoerty of sequences generated
by range(n) is that the total number of elements is n: The sequence omits the number
n itself, but includes 0 instead.
o With more parameters, the range function can be used to generate a much wider
varietu of sequences.
 Basice for loops
o The for loop has the heading starting with for,followed by a variable name(count in
this case), the word in some sequence , and a final colon. As with definition and other
heading lines, the colon at the end of the line indicates that is consistently indented
block of statements follows to complete the for loop.
for item in sequence:
indented statements to repeat; may use item
o The block of lines is repeated once for each element of the sequence. And when we
are executing step by step, we should note that the for loop heading serves two
purposes:
Each time the heading lines executes, it implicitly assigns a new value
to the variable name you use in a place of item.
After each execution of the heading line, the statements in the
indented block are executed, generally making use of the new value for
the variable assigned in the heading.
o When playing computer with a loop, the same line numbers can reappear over and
over, because the for loop heading line and indented body under it are each executed
repeatedly. Each time one of these lines is execured, it must be listed separately, in
time sequence.
o In a file, where the interpreter does not need to respond immediately, the blank line is
not necessary. Instead, as with a function definition or any other format with an
indented block, you indicate being past the indented block by dedenting. Here the
following print statement has the same level of indentation as the for loop heading.
Because they have the same level of indentation, they are execueted in sequence.
o Loops are one of the most important features in programming. While the for loop
syntax is pretty simple, using them creatively to solve problems (rather than just look
at a demonstration) is among the biggesr challenges for many learners at an
introductory level. One of the simplest patterns is illustrated in all of the for loop
examples so far, a simple for-each loop. FOR EACH elemenet of the sequence, do the
same sort of thing with it. Stated as more pythonic pseudo-code:
for each item in sequence:
do somethings with the current item
 o In the for loop example we used, something is printed that is related to each intem in
the list. Printing is certainly one form of “do something”, but the possibilities for “do
something” are completely general!
o A programmer should increase their ability to abstract the general pattern from the
group of examples. This essential for using loops effectively.
 Simple Repeat Loop
o A simpler for loop usage is when you want to repeat the exact same thing a specific
number of times. In this specific case, only the length of the sequence, not the
individual elements are important. We can use the range function since it provides an
easy way to produce a sequence with a specified number of elements.
o When reading a code, we must look at the variable names as they are introduced and
see where they are used later.
o We should remember that we can name a variable _(just underscore)
 Successive Modification Loops
When we need a way to change the value of number that will work
each time through the loop. The pattern of counting is simple, we can
describe the pattern by saying each successive number is one more
than the previous number. We need to be able to change the original
variable so it is one more than it was before.
o Some characteristics of loops are
may contain several variables
one way a variable can change is by being the variable in a for loop
list.
Another way to have variables change in a loop is to have an explicit
statement that changes the variable inside the loop, causing successive
modifications.
o There is a general patterm to loops with successive modifications of a variable
The variables to be modified need initial values before the loop.
The loop heading cause the repetition. In a for-loop, the number of
repetitions is the same as the size of the list.
The body of the loop generally “does something”
There is a code inside the body of the loop to set up for the next time
through the loop, where the variable which needs to change gets
transformed to its next value.
o To the basic syntax will be
Initialize variables to be modified
Loop heading controlling the repetition:
Do the desired action with the current variables
Modify variables to be ready for the next action
o Functions are handy for encapsulating an idea for use and reuse in a program, also for
testing. We can write a function to a number a list, and easily test it with different
data.
 Accumulation Loops
o Suppose you want to add all the numbers in a list, and since the list may be arbitrarily
long, we must find a pattern so that we can keep reusing the same statements in the
loop. And we are using each number in the sequence in order.
o The trick is to use the same line of code the next time through the loop.

o The overall syntax style will be as follows:

Initialization
Loop heading:
Main work to be repeated
Preparation for the next time through the loop.
 o For an accumulation pattern, initialize the accumulation to include one of the
sequence (sum = 0 here)
New value of accumulation = result of combining item with last value
of accumulation
o This pattern will work in many other situation besides adding numbers.
o English loop terminology: We need to be able to go from an English description of a
problem to a plan and then implement it in python. There ae a bunch of questions you
can rountinely ask yourself about fleshing out the outline for the loop part of your
code:
Initialization
Loop heading
Main work to be repeated
Preparation for the next time through the loop
o The question we should be able to answer are
 What is sequence? What descriptive name I can give to the loop variable?
 Write the for loop heading. With this decided, you no longer need to think
about the whole program at once: You can focus on what you do for one
element, with the name you gace in the loop heading.
 What do I need to do for a single element of the sequence? Does thus involve
other variable? If so, how will I inititalize them? Write this action into the body
of the loop, using the loop variable.
 Does the main action involve a variable, other than the loop variable, that
needs to change each time through the loop? If so, how do I relate the present
and naext values, and change the value to be ready for the next time through
the loop? Writing the sequence for a specific example may help. Finally, code
this update.
 More Playing Computer
o Testing code by running it is fine, but looking at the results does not mean you really
undesratnd what is going on, particularly if there is an error. It is important to be able
to predict accurately what code will do.
o Playing computer can help you find bugs (errors in your code). Some errors are syntax
errors aught by the interpreter in ranslation. Some errors are only caught by the
interpreter during execution, like failing to have a value for a variable you use. Other
errors are not caught by the interpreter at all, we just might be getting the wrong
answer. These are called logical errors. Earlier logical errors can also trigger an
executon error later. This is when playing computer is particularly useful.
o We should always be careful that our one-time initialization for a loop goes before the
loop not in it.
 The print function keyword end
o By default the print function adds a newline to the end of the string being printed.
This can be overridden by including the keyword parameter end. The keyword can be
set equal to any string. The most common replacements are the mepy string or a single
blank. If you also use the keyword parameter sep, these keyword parameters may be in
either order, but keyword parameters must come at the end of the parameter list.
 Floats, Division, Mixed Types
o Python stores integers exactly. The difference in the way integers and decimals are
stored and processed lead to decimals and integers being different types in python.
o 3.5 for example is a type “float”, not decimal. Decimal implies base 10. Computers
actually use base two with only two symbols 0, 1. Also floats use an encoding
something like scientific notation from science class with exponents that allow the
decimal point to move or “float”, as in the decimal case.
o Even a number that is actually an integer can be represented in the float type if a
decimal point is included. We should always remember that floats may not be exact.
 The use of base two make this teue even in cases where decimal numbers can be
expressed exactly.
o It is sometimes important to know the numerica type of the result of a binary
operation. Any combination of +, - , or * with operands of type int produces an int. If
there is an operation /, or if either operand is of type float, the result us float.
 Exponentiation, Square Roots
o For exponentitation, python uses ** before power.
o We should remember that exponentiation has even hiher precedence than
multiplication and division.
o Exponents do not need to be integers. Forexample 0.5 power will produce a square
root.
o The result of a power operation is an int type only if both parameters are integers and
the correcr result in an integer.
 String formats for float precision
o If we want to round a floatinf decimal it to something, there are two approaches
First there is format function (not method) with a second parameter
allowed to specialize the formatting of objects as strings. This format
functions returns the formatted string. It does not change parameters.
As a complete statement in a program format (x, ‘.2f’), is useless. And
there is no effect on x.
The rouding notation can also be placed after a colon inside the braces
of format strings, for use with the string format method. You can put a
colon: and the formatting information we used in the simple format
method above.
o In each of these approaches, the colon and formatting specification come at the end of
the expression inside the expression inside the braces, just before the closing}. This
follows the {and symbols (if any) identifying what value to use for the substitution.
o Python does not necessarily remember simple decimal numbers exactly.
o We should not always depend on the exactness of floating point arithmetic even for
apparently simple expressions.

 Python String format() Method

o The format() method formats the specified values and insert them inside the string’s
placeholder.
o The place holder is defined using curly brackets: { }. And the format() method returns
the formatted string.
o The syntax
 string.format(value1, value2…)
 Required. One or more values that should be formatted and inserted in the
string. The values are either a list of values separated by commas, a key=value
list, or a combination of both. The values can be of any data type.
 The placeholders can be identified using named indexes {price}, {0},

II. Objects and Methods

Strings Part III

 Object orientation
o Python is an object oriented language.
 o Every piece of data and even function and types are objects.
o The term object oriented is used to distinguish python from earlier lanaguages,
classified as procedural languages where types of data and operations on them were
not connected in the language. In object oriented programming, all data are in the
objects, and a core group of operations that can be done on some particular type of
object are tightly bound to the object and called the object’s methods.
o For example strings are objects, and strings “know-how” to produce an uppercase
version of themselves.
o Upper is a method associated with strings. And upper is a function that is bound to the
string before the dot. The function is bound both logically, and as we see in th new
notation also syntactically.
o Each type of data knows operations (methods) that can be applied to it. And it returns
a new uppercase srtring result based on s.
o Strings are immutable, so no string method can change the original string, it can only
return a new string.
o The new object syntax is
object.method( )
o Meaning that the method associated with the object’s type is applied to the object.
This is just a special function call on object.
o Another string method is a lower, analogous to upper, but producing a lower result.
o Many methods also take additional parameters between the parantheses, using the
more general syntax:
object.method(parameters)
o The first of many such methods we will introduce is count:
s.count(sub)
This wukkk count and return the number of repetitions of a string sub
that appear as a substrings inside the string
o Just as the parameter can be replaced by a literal or any expression, the object to
which a method is bound with the dot may also be given by a literal, or a variable
name, or any expression that evaluates to the right kind of object in its place. This is
true for any method call.
o Technically the dot between the object and the method name is an operator, and
operators have different levels of precedence. It is important to realize that this dot
operator has the highest possible precedence.
o Python lets you see all the methods that are bound to an object(and any object of its
type) with the built-in function dir. To see all string methods, supply the dir function
with any string.
o Many of the name in the list start and end with underscores, forexample like _add_.
These are all associated with methods and pieces of data used internally by the python
interpreter. The remaining entreis in the list are all user-level methods for strings. We
should not that some of the methods are more commonly used than others.
o Object notation have been illustrated so far with just the object type str, but it
applies to all types.
object.method(parameters)
 String indices
o A string is a sequence of smaller components (individual characters), and it is often
useful to deal with parts of strings.
o Python indexes the characters in string, starting from 0. Each index is associated with a
character, and you reference the individual characters much like in a dictionary.
o len is a function which gives the length of a sequence and it works on strings.
o The indices for a string of length n are the elements of the sequence range(n), which
goes from 0 through n -1, or the length of the string minus one.
o On python you can index from the right end of the string. Since positive integers are
used to index from the front, negative integers are used to index from the right end.
  String Slices
o It is sometime necessary to extract larger pieces of a string than a single character and
the this is called slicing.
o Forexample when we index a variable s
s [startindex : pastindex]
This refers to the substracting of s starting at index startindex and
stopping just before index pastindex.
o It confuses many people that the index after the colon is not the index of the final
character in the lsice. The second index is past the end of the slice.
o If we omit the first index, the slice starts from the beginning. If you omit the second
index, the slice goes all the way to the end.
o Python evaluates slices in a more forgiving manner than when indiexing single
charachers.
o A useful strig method that uses the ideas of indices and slices is find.
o Syntax options for find method with a string
o Return the integer index in the string s of the beginning of the first complete
occurrence of the substring sub. Is sub does not appear inside s, return -1. The vakue
would be an impossible if sub must not have been found. If parameters start and end
are not included in the parameter list, the search is through the whole thing s. If an
integer value is given for a start, the search starts at index start. If an integer value is
given for end, the search ends before index end. In Other words if start and end
appear, then the search is through the slice s[start: end], but the index returned is still
counted from the beginning of s.
o Here is a place that you want to refer to the method itself, not invoke the method, so
note that you get help for s.find not for s.find ( ).
o The python documentation for a function with one or more parameters, you may see
what looks like a final parameter/. Ignore it. It documents a technical restriction on
parameters. It is not actually a parameter.
o Indexing and slicing works on any kind of python sequence, so you can index or slice
lists.
o Unlike strings, lists are mutable. Indices and slices can also be used in assignment
statements to change lists
 Index Variables
o Variables or expressions are almost always used for indices.
 Slit
o The syntax option for split method with a string s:
s.split ( )
s.split(sep)
o The first version splits s at any sequence of whitespace (blanks, newlines, tab) and
returns the remaining parts of s as a list. If a string sep is specified, it is the separator
that gets removed from between the parts of the list.
 Join
o Join is roughly the reverse of split. It joins together a sequence of strings. The syntax is
rather different. The separator sep comes first, since it has the right type (a string).
sep.join(sequence)
o It will return a new string obtained by joining together the sequence of strings into one
string, interleaving the string sep between sequence elements.
o The methods split and join are often used in sequence.

More Classes & Methods

 Appending to a list
 o Lists have a method called append. It modifies the original list. Another word for
modifiable is mutable. Lists are mutable. Most of the types of objects considered so far
(int,str,float) are immutable or not mutable
o The fact lists areare modifiable is useful I loop where we can accumulate a new list.
o .append takes only one argument at a time.
 Sets
o We have learned from maths that a sets is a collection that does not allow repittions (a
set automatically removes repetitions suggested).
o Python has a type set. Like many type names, it can be used to convert other types
(collections) to sets and removes duplicates.
o A set is unordered. SO literals are enclosed in braces. Like other collection, a set can
be used as a sequence in for loop.

 Constructors
o In cases a new object of a specified type is constructed and returned, the functions are
called constructors.

Graphics

 We need the graphics.py file in the same folder as any graphics program we write.
 A graphics introduction
o