Byte of Python

1
A Reference Book By:-
Vision Technologies
Byte of Python
v1.92 (for Python 3.0)
Vision Technologies
#483/A, 18th B Main,
3rd Sector, HSR Layout,
Bangalore - 560 102
Tel : +9180 65591906
email: info@vtindia.net
website : www.vtindia.net
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Python en:Table of Contents
Python en:Table of Contents

Front Page
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Python en:Introduction
Introduction
Python is one of those rare languages which can claim to be both simple and powerful.
You will find that you will be pleasantly surprised on how easy it is to concentrate on the
solution to the problem rather than the syntax and structure of the language you are
programming in.
The official introduction to Python is:
Python is an easy to learn, powerful programming language. It has efficient
high-level data structures and a simple but effective approach to object-oriented
programming. Python's elegant syntax and dynamic typing, together with its
interpreted nature, make it an ideal language for scripting and rapid application
development in many areas on most platforms.
I will discuss most of these features in more detail in the next section.
Note
Guido van Rossum, the creator of the Python language, named the language after the
BBC show "Monty Python's Flying Circus". He doesn't particularly like snakes that kill
animals for food by winding their long bodies around them and crushing them.
Features of Python
Simple
Python is a simple and minimalistic language. Reading a good Python program feels
almost like reading English, although very strict English! This pseudo-code nature of
Python is one of its greatest strengths. It allows you to concentrate on the solution to
the problem rather than the language itself.
Easy to Learn
As you will see, Python is extremely easy to get started with. Python has an
extraordinarily simple syntax, as already mentioned.
Free and Open Source
Python is an example of a FLOSS (Free/Libr and Open Source Software). In simple
terms, you can freely distribute copies of this software, read its source code, make
changes to it, and use pieces of it in new free programs. FLOSS is based on the
concept of a community which shares knowledge. This is one of the reasons why
Python is so good - it has been created and is constantly improved by a community who
just want to see a better Python.
High-level Language
When you write programs in Python, you never need to bother about the low-level
details such as managing the memory used by your program, etc.
Portable
Due to its open-source nature, Python has been ported to (i.e. changed to make it work
on) many platforms. All your Python programs can work on any of these platforms
without requiring any changes at all if you are careful enough to avoid any
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system-dependent features.
You can use Python on Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, Macintosh, Solaris, OS/2, Amiga,
AROS, AS/400, BeOS, OS/390, z/OS, Palm OS, QNX, VMS, Psion, Acorn RISC OS,
VxWorks, PlayStation, Sharp Zaurus, Windows CE and even PocketPC !
Interpreted
This requires a bit of explanation.
A program written in a compiled language like C or C++ is converted from the source
language i.e. C or C++ into a language that is spoken by your computer (binary code
i.e. 0s and 1s) using a compiler with various flags and options. When you run the
program, the linker/loader software copies the program from hard disk to memory and
starts running it.
Python, on the other hand, does not need compilation to binary. You just run the
program directly from the source code. Internally, Python converts the source code
into an intermediate form called bytecodes and then translates this into the native
language of your computer and then runs it. All this, actually, makes using Python
much easier since you don't have to worry about compiling the program, making sure
that the proper libraries are linked and loaded, etc, etc. This also makes your Python
programs much more portable, since you can just copy your Python program onto
another computer and it just works!
Object Oriented
Python supports procedure-oriented programming as well as object-oriented
programming. In procedure-oriented languages, the program is built around
procedures or functions which are nothing but reusable pieces of programs. In
object-oriented languages, the program is built around objects which combine data
and functionality. Python has a very powerful but simplistic way of doing OOP,
especially when compared to big languages like C++ or Java.
Extensible
If you need a critical piece of code to run very fast or want to have some piece of
algorithm not to be open, you can code that part of your program in C or C++ and
then use it from your Python program.
Embeddable
You can embed Python within your C/C++ programs to give 'scripting' capabilities for
your program's users.
Extensive Libraries
The Python Standard Library is huge indeed. It can help you do various things
involving regular expressions, documentation generation, unit testing, threading,
databases, web browsers, CGI, FTP, email, XML, XML-RPC, HTML, WAV files,
cryptography, GUI (graphical user interfaces), Tk, and other system-dependent stuff.
Remember, all this is always available wherever Python is installed. This is called the
'Batteries Included' philosophy of Python.
Besides, the standard library, there are various other high-quality libraries such as
wxPython (http:/ / www. wxpython. org) , Twisted (http:/ / www. twistedmatrix. com/
products/ twisted), Python Imaging Library (http:/ / www. pythonware. com/ products/
pil/index.htm) and many more.
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Python is indeed an exciting and powerful language. It has the right combination of
performance and features that make writing programs in Python both fun and easy.
Why not Perl?

If you didn't know already, Perl is another extremely popular open source interpreted
programming language.
If you have ever tried writing a large program in Perl, you would have answered this
question yourself! In other words, Perl programs are easy when they are small and it excels
at small hacks and scripts to 'get work done'. However, they quickly become unwieldy once
you start writing bigger programs and I am speaking this out of my experience writing
large Perl programs at Yahoo!
When compared to Perl, Python programs are definitely simpler, clearer, easier to write
and hence more understandable and maintainable. I do admire Perl and I do use it on a
daily basis for various things but whenever I write a program, I always start thinking in
terms of Python because it has become so natural for me. Perl has undergone so many
hacks and changes, that it feels like it is one big (but one hell of a) hack. Sadly, the
upcoming Perl 6 does not seem to be making any improvements regarding this.
The only and very significant advantage that I feel Perl has, is its huge CPAN (http:/ / cpan.
perl. org) library - the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network. As the name suggests, this is a
humongous collection of Perl modules and it is simply mind-boggling because of its sheer
size and depth - you can do virtually anything you can do with a computer using these
modules. One of the reasons that Perl has more libraries than Python is that it has been
around for a much longer time than Python. However this seems to be changing with the
growing Python Package Index (http:// pypi.python.org/pypi).
Why not Ruby?

If you didn't know already, Ruby is another popular open source interpreted programming
language.
If you already like and use Ruby, then I would definitely recommend you to continue using
it.
For other people who have not used it and are trying to judge whether to learn Python or to
learn Ruby, then I would recommend Python, purely from an ease-of-learning perspective. I
personally found it hard to grok the Ruby language, but for people who understand Ruby,
they all praise the beauty of the language. Unfortunately, I am not as lucky.
What Programmers Say

You may find it interesting to read what great hackers like ESR have to say about Python:
Eric S. Raymond is the author of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" and is also the person
who coined the term Open Source. He says that Python has become his favorite
programming language (http:// www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=3882). This
article was the real inspiration for my first brush with Python.
Bruce Eckel is the author of the famous Thinking in Java and Thinking in C++ books.
He says that no language has made him more productive than Python. He says that
Python is perhaps the only language that focuses on making things easier for the
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programmer. Read the complete interview (http:// www.artima.com/intv/aboutme.
html) for more details.
Peter Norvig is a well-known Lisp author and Director of Search Quality at Google
(thanks to Guido van Rossum for pointing that out). He says that Python has always been
an integral part of Google. You can actually verify this statement by looking at the Google
Jobs (http:// www.google.com/jobs/index.html) page which lists Python knowledge as a
requirement for software engineers.
About Python 3.0

Python 3.0 is the new version of the language. It is sometimes referred to as Python 3000 or
Py3K.
The main reason for a major new version of Python is to remove all the small problems and
nitpicks that have accumulated over the years and to make the language even more clean.
If you already have a lot of Python 2.x code, then there is a utility to assist you to convert
2.x to 3.x source (http:// docs.python.org/dev/3. 0/ library/2to3.html).
More details are at:
Guido van Rossum's introduction (http:// www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.
jsp?thread=208549)
What's New in Python 2.6 (http:// docs.python.org/dev/whatsnew/2. 6. html) (features
significantly different from previous Python 2.x versions and most likely will be included
in Python 3.0)
What's New in Python 3.0 (http:// docs.python.org/dev/3. 0/ whatsnew/3. 0. html)
Python 2.6 and 3.0 Release Schedule (http:// www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0361/)
Python 3000 (the official authoritative list of proposed changes) (http:// www.python.
org/dev/peps/pep-3000/)
Miscellaneous Python 3.0 Plans (http:// www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3100/)
Python News (detailed list of changes) (http:// www.python.org/download/releases/3.
0/ NEWS.txt)
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Python en:Installation
If you have Python 2.x installed already, you do not have to remove it to install Python 3.0.
You can have both installed at the same time.
For Linux and BSD users

If you are using a Linux distribution such as Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE or {put your
choice here}, or a BSD system such as FreeBSD, then it is most likely you already have
Python installed on your system.
To test if you have Python already installed on your Linux box, open a shell program (like
konsole or gnome-terminal) and enter the command python -V as shown below.
$ python -V
Python 3.0b1
Note
$ is the prompt of the shell. It will be different for you depending on the settings of
your OS, hence I will indicate the prompt by just the $ symbol.
If you see some version information like the one shown above, then you have Python
installed already.
However, if you get a message like this one:
$ python -V
bash: Python: command not found
Then you don't have Python installed. This is highly unlikely but possible.
Note
If you have Python 2.x already installed, then try python3 -V.
In this case, you have two ways of installing Python on your system.
You can compile Python from the source code (http:// www.python.org/download/
releases/3. 0/ ) and install it. The compilation instructions are provided at the website.
[This option will be available after the final release of Python 3.0] Install the binary
packages using the package management software that comes with your OS, such as
apt-get in Ubuntu/Debian and other Debian-based Linux, yum in Fedora Linux, pkg_add
in FreeBSD, etc. Note that you will need an internet connection to use this method.
Alternatively, you can download the binaries from somewhere else and then copy to your
PC and install it.
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For Windows Users

Visit http:/ / www. python. org/ download/ releases/ 3. 0/ and download the latest version
from this website, which was 3.0 beta 1 (http:/ / www. python. org/ ftp/ python/ 3. 0/
python-3. 0b1. msi) as of this writing. This is just 12.8 MB which is very compact compared
to most other languages or software. The installation is just like any other Windows-based
software.
Caution
When you are given the option of unchecking any "optional" components, don't
uncheck any! Some of these components can be useful for you, especially IDLE.
An interesting fact is that majority of Python downloads are by Windows users. Of course,
this doesn't give the complete picture since almost all Linux users will have Python installed
already on their systems by default.
DOS Prompt
If you want to be able to use Python from the Windows command line i.e. the DOS prompt,
then you need to set the PATH variable appropriately.
For Windows 2000, XP, 2003 , click on Control Panel -> System -> Advanced ->
Environment Variables. Click on the variable named PATH in the 'System Variables'
section, then select Edit and add ;C:\Python30 to the end of what is already there. Of
course, use the appropriate directory name.
For older versions of Windows, add the following line to the file C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT :
'PATH=%PATH%;C:\Python30' (without the quotes) and restart the system. For Windows NT,
use the AUTOEXEC.NT file.
For Mac OS X Users

Mac OS X Users will find Python already installed on their system. Open the Terminal.app
and run python -V and follow the advice in the above Linux section.
Summary
For a Linux system, you most probably already have Python installed on your system.
Otherwise, you can install it using the package management software that comes with your
distribution. For a Windows system, installing Python is as easy as downloading the
installer and double-clicking on it. From now on, we will assume that you have Python
installed on your system.
Next, we will write our first Python program.
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Python en:First Steps

Introduction
We will now see how to run a traditional 'Hello World' program in Python. This will teach
you how to write, save and run Python programs.
There are two ways of using Python to run your program - using the interactive interpreter
prompt or using a source file. We will now see how to use both of these methods
Using The Interpreter Prompt

Start the interpreter on the command line by entering python at the shell prompt.
For Windows users, you can run the interpreter in the command line if you have set the
PATH variable appropriately.
If you are using IDLE, click on Start Programs Python 3.0 IDLE (Python GUI).
Now enter print('Hello World') followed by the Enter key. You should see the words
Hello World as output.
$ python
Python 3.0b2 (r30b2:65106, Jul 18 2008, 18:44:17) [MSC v.1500 32
bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more
information.
>>> print('Hello World')
Hello World
>>>
Notice that Python gives you the output of the line immediately! What you just entered is a
single Python statement. We use print to (unsurprisingly) print any value that you supply
to it. Here, we are supplying the text Hello World and this is promptly printed to the
screen.
How to Quit the Interpreter Prompt
To exit the prompt, press ctrl-d if you are using IDLE or are using a Linux/BSD shell.
In case of the Windows command prompt, press ctrl-z followed by enter key.
Choosing An Editor
Before we move on to writing Python programs in source files, we need an editor to write
the source files. The choice of an editor is crucial indeed. You have to choose an editor as
you would choose a car you would buy. A good editor will help you write Python programs
easily, making your journey more comfortable and helps you reach your destination
(achieve your goal) in a much faster and safer way.
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One of the very basic requirements is syntax highlighting where all the different parts of
your Python program are colorized so that you can see your program and visualize its
running.
If you are using Windows, then I suggest that you use IDLE. IDLE does syntax highlighting
and a lot more such as allowing you to run your programs within IDLE among other things.
A special note: Do not use Notepad - it is a bad choice because it does not do syntax
highlighting and also importantly it does not support indentation of the text which is very
important in our case as we will see later. Good editors such as IDLE (and also VIM) will
automatically help you do this.
If you are using Linux/FreeBSD, then you have a lot of choices for an editor. If you are just
beginning to program, you might want to use geany. It has a graphical user interface and
has buttons to compile and run your python program without a fuss.
If you are an experienced programmer, then you must be already using Vim or Emacs.
Needless to say, these are two of the most powerful editors and you will be benefitted by
using them to write your Python programs. I personally use Vim for most of my programs.
If you are a beginner programmer, then you can use Kate which is one of my favorites. In
case you are willing to take the time to learn Vim or Emacs, then I highly recommend that
you do learn to use either of them as it will be very useful for you in the long run.
In this book, we will use IDLE, our IDE and editor of choice. IDLE is installed by default
with the Windows and Mac OS X Python installers. It is also available for installation for
Linux (http:/ / love-python. blogspot. com/ 2008/ 03/ install-idle-in-linux. html) and BSDs in
their respective repositories.
We will explore how to use IDLE in the next section. For further details, please refer the
IDLE documentation (http:// www.python.org/idle/doc/idlemain.html).
If you still want to explore other choices of an editor, see the comprehensive list of Python
editors (http:/ / www. python. org/ cgi-bin/ moinmoin/ PythonEditors) and make your choice.
You can also choose an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for Python. See the
comprehensive list of IDEs that support Python (http:/ / www. python. org/ cgi-bin/
moinmoin/ IntegratedDevelopmentEnvironments) for more details. Once you start writing
large Python programs, IDEs can be very useful indeed.
I repeat once again, please choose a proper editor - it can make writing Python programs
more fun and easy.
For Vim users
There is a good introduction on how to make Vim a powerful Python IDE by John M
Anderson (http:// blog.sontek.net/2008/05/ 11/ python-with-a-modular-ide-vim/).
For Emacs users
There is a good introduction on how to make Emacs a powerful Python IDE by Ryan
McGuire
(http:/
/
www.
enigmacurry.
com/
2008/
05/
09/
emacs-as-a-powerful-python-ide/).
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Using A Source File

Now let's get back to programming. There is a tradition that whenever you learn a new
programming language, the first program that you write and run is the 'Hello World'
program - all it does is just say 'Hello World' when you run it. As Simon Cozens [1] puts it, it
is the 'traditional incantation to the programming gods to help you learn the language
better' :) .
Start your choice of editor, enter the following program and save it as helloworld.py
If you are using IDLE, click on File New Window and enter the following program. Then
click on File Save.
#!/usr/bin/python
#Filename: helloworld.py
print('Hello World')
Run this program by opening a shell (Linux terminal or DOS prompt) and entering the
command python helloworld.py.
If you are using IDLE, use the menu Run Run Module or the keyboard shortcut F5.
The output is as shown below.
$ python helloworld.py
Hello World
If you got the output as shown above, congratulations! - you have successfully run your first
Python program.
In case you got an error, please type the above program exactly as shown and above and
run the program again. Note that Python is case-sensitive i.e. print is not the same as
Print - note the lowercase p in the former and the uppercase P in the latter. Also, ensure
there are no spaces or tabs before the first character in each line - we will see why this is
important later.
How It Works
Let us consider the first two lines of the program. These are called comments - anything to
the right of the # symbol is a comment and is mainly useful as notes for the reader of the
program.
Python does not use comments except for the special case of the first line here. It is called
the shebang line - whenever the first two characters of the source file are #! followed by
the location of a program, this tells your Linux/Unix system that this program should be run
with this interpreter when you execute the program. This is explained in detail in the next
section. Note that you can always run the program on any platform by specifying the
interpreter directly on the command line such as the command python helloworld.py .
Important
Use comments sensibly in your program to explain some important details of your
program - this is useful for readers of your program so that they can easily understand
what the program is doing. Remember, that person can be yourself after six months!
The comments are followed by a Python statement. Here we call the print function this
just prints the text 'Hello World'. We will learn about functions in a later chapter, what
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you should understand now is that whatever you supply in the parentheses will be printed
back to the screen. In this case, we supply 'Hello World' which is referred to as a string don't worry, we will explore these terminologies in detail later.
Executable Python Programs

This applies only to Linux/Unix users but Windows users might be curious as well about the
first line of the program. First, we have to give the program executable permission using
the chmod command then run the source program.
$ chmod a+x helloworld.py
$ ./helloworld.py
Hello World
The chmod command is used here to change the mode of the file by giving execute
permission to all users of the system. Then, we execute the program directly by specifying
the location of the source file. We use the ./ to indicate that the program is located in the
current directory.
To make things more fun, you can rename the file to just helloworld and run it as
./helloworld and it will still work since the system knows that it has to run the program
using the interpreter whose location is specified in the first line in the source file.
What if you don't know where Python is located? Then, you can use the special env
program on Linux/Unix systems. Just change the first line of the program to the following:
#!/usr/bin/env python
The env program will in turn look for the Python interpreter which will run the program.
So far, we have been able to run our program as long as we know the exact path. What if
we wanted to be able to run the program from anywhere? You can do this by storing the
program in one of the directories listed in the PATH environment variable. Whenever you
run any program, the system looks for that program in each of the directories listed in the
PATH environment variable and then runs that program. We can make this program
available everywhere by simply copying this source file to one of the directories listed in
PATH.
$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/home/swaroop/bin
$ cp helloworld.py /home/swaroop/bin/helloworld
$ helloworld
Hello World
We can display the PATH variable using the echo command and prefixing the variable name
by $ to indicate to the shell that we need the value of this variable. We see that
/home/swaroop/bin is one of the directories in the PATH variable where swaroop is the
username I am using in my system. There will usually be a similar directory for your
username on your system. Alternatively, you can add a directory of your choice to the PATH
variable - this can be done by running PATH=$PATH:/home/swaroop/mydir where
'/home/swaroop/mydir' is the directory I want to add to the PATH variable.
This method is very useful if you want to write useful scripts that you want to run the
program anytime, anywhere. It is like creating your own commands just like cd or any
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other commands that you use in the Linux terminal or DOS prompt.
Caution
W.r.t. Python, a program or a script or software all mean the same thing.
Getting Help
If you need quick information about any function or statement in Python, then you can use
the built-in help functionality. This is very useful especially when using the interpreter
prompt. For example, run help(print) - this displays the help for the print function which
is used to print things to the screen.
Note
Press q to exit the help.
Similarly, you can obtain information about almost anything in Python. Use help() to learn
more about using help itself!
In case you need to get help for operators like return, then you need to put those inside
quotes such as help('return') so that Python doesn't get confused on what we're trying
to do.
Summary
You should now be able to write, save and run Python programs at ease. Now that you are a
Python user, let's learn some more Python concepts.
References:
[1] The author of the amazing 'Beginning Perl' book
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Python en:Basics
Python en:Basics
Just printing 'Hello World' is not enough, is it? You want to do more than that - you want to
take some input, manipulate it and get something out of it. We can achieve this in Python
using constants and variables.
Literal Constants
An example of a literal constant is a number like 5, 1.23, 9.25e-3 or a string like 'This is
a string' or "It's a string!". It is called a literal because it is literal - you use its value
literally. The number 2 always represents itself and nothing else - it is a constant because
its value cannot be changed. Hence, all these are referred to as literal constants.
Numbers
Numbers in Python are of three types - integers, floating point and complex numbers.
An examples of an integer is 2 which is just a whole number.
Examples of floating point numbers (or floats for short) are 3.23 and 52.3E-4. The E
notation indicates powers of 10. In this case, 52.3E-4 means 52.3 * 10-4.
Examples of complex numbers are (-5+4j) and (2.3 - 4.6j)
Note for Experienced Programmers
There is no separate 'long int' type. The default integer type can be any large value.
Strings
A string is a sequence of characters. Strings are basically just a bunch of words. The words
can be in English or any other language that is supported in the Unicode standard, which
means almost any language in the world (http:// www.unicode.org/faq/basic_q.html#16).
Note for Experienced Programmers
There are no "ASCII-only" strings because Unicode is a superset of ASCII. If a strictly
ASCII-encoded byte-stream is needed, then use str.encode("ascii"). For more
details, please see the related discussion at StackOverflow (http:/ / stackoverflow. com/
questions/
175240/
how-do-i-convert-a-files-format-from-unicode-to-ascii-using-python#175270).
By default, all strings are in Unicode.
I can almost guarantee that you will be using strings in almost every Python program that
you write, so pay attention to the following part on how to use strings in Python.
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Python en:Basics
Single Quotes
You can specify strings using single quotes such as 'Quote me on this'. All white space
i.e. spaces and tabs are preserved as-is.
Double Quotes
Strings in double quotes work exactly the same way as strings in single quotes. An example
is "What's your name?"
Triple Quotes
You can specify multi-line strings using triple quotes - (""" or '''). You can use single quotes
and double quotes freely within the triple quotes. An example is:
'''This
This is
"What's
He said
'''
is a multi-line string. This is the first line.

the second line.
your name?," I asked.
"Bond, James Bond."
Escape Sequences
Suppose, you want to have a string which contains a single quote ('), how will you specify
this string? For example, the string is What's your name?. You cannot specify 'What's
your name?' because Python will be confused as to where the string starts and ends. So,
you will have to specify that this single quote does not indicate the end of the string. This
can be done with the help of what is called an escape sequence. You specify the single
quote as \' - notice the backslash. Now, you can specify the string as 'What\'s your
name?'.
Another way of specifying this specific string would be "What's your name?" i.e. using
double quotes. Similarly, you have to use an escape sequence for using a double quote itself
in a double quoted string. Also, you have to indicate the backslash itself using the escape
sequence \\.
What if you wanted to specify a two-line string? One way is to use a triple-quoted string as
shown previously or you can use an escape sequence for the newline character - \n to
indicate the start of a new line. An example is This is the first line\nThis is the
second line. Another useful escape sequence to know is the tab - \t. There are many more
escape sequences but I have mentioned only the most useful ones here.
One thing to note is that in a string, a single backslash at the end of the line indicates that
the string is continued in the next line, but no newline is added. For example:
"This is the first sentence.\
This is the second sentence."
is equivalent to "This is the first sentence. This is the second sentence.".
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Python en:Basics
Raw Strings
If you need to specify some strings where no special processing such as escape sequences
are handled, then what you need is to specify a raw string by prefixing r or R to the string.
An example is r"Newlines are indicated by \n".
Strings Are Immutable

This means that once you have created a string, you cannot change it. Although this might
seem like a bad thing, it really isn't. We will see why this is not a limitation in the various
programs that we see later on.
String Literal Concatenation

If you place two string literals side by side, they are automatically concatenated by Python.
For example, 'What\'s ' 'your name?' is automatically converted in to "What's your
name?".
Note for C/C++ Programmers
There is no separate char data type in Python. There is no real need for it and I am
sure you won't miss it.
Note for Perl/PHP Programmers
Remember that single-quoted strings and double-quoted strings are the same - they do
not differ in any way.
Note for Regular Expression Users
Always use raw strings when dealing with regular expressions. Otherwise, a lot of
backwhacking may be required. For example, backreferences can be referred to as
'\\1' or r'\1'.
The format Method

Sometimes we may want to construct strings from other information. This is where the
format() method is useful.
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: str_format.py
age = 25
name = 'Swaroop'
print('{0} is {1} years old'.format(name, age))
print('Why is {0} playing with that python?'.format(name))
Output:
$ python str_format.py
Swaroop is 25 years old
Why is Swaroop playing with that python?
How It Works:
A string can use certain specifications and subsequently, the format method can be called
to substitute those specifications with corresponding arguments to the format method.
17
Python en:Basics
Observe the first usage where we use {0} and this corresponds to the variable name which
is the first argument to the format method. Similarly, the second specification is {1}
corresponding to age which is the second argument to the format method.
Notice that we could achieved the same using string concatenation: name + ' is ' +
str(age) + ' years old' but notice how much uglier and error-prone this is. Second, the
conversion to string would be done automatically by the format method instead of the
explicit conversion here. Third, when using the format method, we can change the
message without having to deal with the variables used and vice-versa.
What Python does in the format method is that it substitutes each argument value into the
place of the specification. There can be more detailed specifications such as:
>>> '{0:.3}'.format(1/3) # decimal (.) precision of 3 for float
'0.333'
>>> '{0:_^11}'.format('hello') # fill with underscores (_) with the text
centered (^) to 11 width
'___hello___'
>>> '{name} wrote {book}'.format(name='Swaroop', book='A Byte of Python')
# keyword-based
'Swaroop wrote A Byte of Python'
Details of this formatting specification is explained in the Python Enhancement Proposal
No. 3101 (http:// www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3101/).
Variables
Using just literal constants can soon become boring - we need some way of storing any
information and manipulate them as well. This is where variables come into the picture.
Variables are exactly what the name implies - their value can vary, i.e., you can store
anything using a variable. Variables are just parts of your computer's memory where you
store some information. Unlike literal constants, you need some method of accessing these
variables and hence you give them names.
Identifier Naming
Variables are examples of identifiers. Identifiers are names given to identify something.
There are some rules you have to follow for naming identifiers:
The first character of the identifier must be a letter of the alphabet (uppercase ASCII or
lowercase ASCII or Unicode character) or an underscore ('_').

The rest of the identifier name can consist of letters (uppercase ASCII or lowercase
ASCII or Unicode character), underscores ('_') or digits (0-9).
Identifier names are case-sensitive. For example, myname and myName are not the same.
Note the lowercase n in the former and the uppercase N in the latter.
Examples of valid identifier names are i, __my_name, name_23, a1b2_c3 and
resum_count.
Examples of invalid identifier names are 2things, this is spaced out, my-name, and
"this_is_in_quotes".
18
Python en:Basics
Data Types
Variables can hold values of different types called data types. The basic types are numbers
and strings, which we have already discussed. In later chapters, we will see how to create
our own types using classes.
Objects
Remember, Python refers to anything used in a program as an object. This is meant in the
generic sense. Instead of saying 'the something', we say 'the object'.
Note for Object Oriented Programming users
Python is strongly object-oriented in the sense that everything is an object including
numbers, strings and functions.
We will now see how to use variables along with literal constants. Save the following
example and run the program.
How to write Python programs
Henceforth, the standard procedure to save and run a Python program is as follows:
1. Open your favorite editor.
1. Enter the program code given in the example.
1. Save it as a file with the filename mentioned in the comment. I follow the convention
of having all Python programs saved with the extension .py.
1. Run the interpreter with the command python program.py or use IDLE to run the
programs. You can also use the executable method as explained earlier.
Example: Using Variables And Literal Constants

# Filename : var.py
i = 5
print(i)
i = i + 1
print(i)
s = '''This is a multi-line string.
This is the second line.'''
print(s)
Output:
$ python var.py
5
6
This is a multi-line string.
This is the second line.
How It Works:
Here's how this program works. First, we assign the literal constant value 5 to the variable
i using the assignment operator (=). This line is called a statement because it states that
19
Python en:Basics
something should be done and in this case, we connect the variable name i to the value 5.
Next, we print the value of i using the print statement which, unsurprisingly, just prints
the value of the variable to the screen.
Then we add 1 to the value stored in i and store it back. We then print it and expectedly,
we get the value 6.
Similarly, we assign the literal string to the variable s and then print it.
Note for static language programmers
Variables are used by just assigning them a value. No declaration or data type
definition is needed/used.
Logical And Physical Lines

A physical line is what you see when you write the program. A logical line is what Python
sees as a single statement. Python implicitly assumes that each physical line corresponds to
a logical line.
An example of a logical line is a statement like print('Hello World') - if this was on a
line by itself (as you see it in an editor), then this also corresponds to a physical line.
Implicitly, Python encourages the use of a single statement per line which makes code more
readable.
If you want to specify more than one logical line on a single physical line, then you have to
explicitly specify this using a semicolon (;) which indicates the end of a logical
line/statement. For example,
i = 5
print(i)
is effectively same as
i = 5;
print(i);
and the same can be written as
i = 5; print(i);
or even
i = 5; print(i)
However, I strongly recommend that you stick to writing a single logical line in
single physical line only. Use more than one physical line for a single logical line only
the logical line is really long. The idea is to avoid the semicolon as much as possible since
leads to more readable code. In fact, I have never used or even seen a semicolon in
Python program.
a
if
it
a
An example of writing a logical line spanning many physical lines follows. This is referred to
as explicit line joining.
s = 'This is a string. \
This continues the string.'
print(s)
20
Python en:Basics
This gives the output:
This is a string. This continues the string.
Similarly,
print\
(i)
is the same as
print(i)
Sometimes, there is an implicit assumption where you don't need to use a backslash. This is
the case where the logical line uses parentheses, square brackets or curly braces. This is is
called implicit line joining. You can see this in action when we write programs using lists
in later chapters.
Indentation
Whitespace is important in Python. Actually, whitespace at the beginning of the line is
important. This is called indentation. Leading whitespace (spaces and tabs) at the
beginning of the logical line is used to determine the indentation level of the logical line,
which in turn is used to determine the grouping of statements.
This means that statements which go together must have the same indentation. Each such
set of statements is called a block. We will see examples of how blocks are important in
later chapters.
One thing you should remember is that wrong indentation can give rise to errors. For
example:
i = 5
print('Value is ', i) # Error! Notice a single space at the start of
the line
print('I repeat, the value is ', i)
When you run this, you get the following error:
File "whitespace.py", line 4
print('Value is ', i) # Error! Notice a single space at the
start of the line
^
IndentationError: unexpected indent
Notice that there is a single space at the beginning of the second line. The error indicated
by Python tells us that the syntax of the program is invalid i.e. the program was not
properly written. What this means to you is that you cannot arbitrarily start new blocks of
statements (except for the default main block which you have been using all along, of
course). Cases where you can use new blocks will be detailed in later chapters such as the
control flow chapter.
How to indent
Do not use a mixture of tabs and spaces for the indentation as it does not work across
different platforms properly. I strongly recommend that you use a single tab or four
21
Python en:Basics
spaces for each indentation level.
Choose either of these two indentation styles. More importantly, choose one and use it
consistently i.e. use that indentation style only.
Note to static language programmers
Python will always use indentation for blocks and will never use braces. Run from
__future__ import braces to learn more.
Summary
Now that we have gone through many nitty-gritty details, we can move on to more
interesting stuff such as control flow statements. Be sure to become comfortable with what
you have read in this chapter.
Python en:Operators and Expressions

Introduction
Most statements (logical lines) that you write will contain expressions. A simple example
of an expression is 2 + 3. An expression can be broken down into operators and operands.
Operators are functionality that do something and can be represented by symbols such as +
or by special keywords. Operators require some data to operate on and such data is called
operands. In this case, 2 and 3 are the operands.
Operators
We will briefly take a look at the operators and their usage:
Note that you can evaluate the expressions given in the examples using the interpreter
interactively. For example, to test the expression 2 + 3, use the interactive Python
interpreter prompt:
>>> 2 + 3
5
>>> 3 * 5
15
>>>
Operator
Name
Explanation
Examples
Plus
Adds the two objects
3 + 5 gives 8. 'a' + 'b' gives 'ab'.
Minus
Either gives a negative

number or gives the
subtraction of one number
from the other
-5.2 gives a negative number. 50 - 24 gives 26.
22
Multiply
Gives the multiplication of the

two numbers or returns the
string repeated that many
times.
2 * 3 gives 6. 'la' * 3 gives 'lalala'.
**
Power
Returns x to the power of y
3 ** 4 gives 81 (i.e. 3 * 3 * 3 * 3)
Divide
Divide x by y
4 / 3 gives 1.3333333333333333.
//
Floor Division Returns the floor of the

quotient
4 // 3 gives 1.
Modulo
Returns the remainder of the

division
8 % 3 gives 2. -25.5 % 2.25 gives 1.5.
<<
Left Shift
Shifts the bits of the number

2 << 2 gives 8. 2 is represented by 10 in bits. Left
to the left by the number of
shifting by 2 bits gives 1000 which represents the
bits specified. (Each number is decimal 8.
represented in memory by bits
or binary digits i.e. 0 and 1)
>>
Right Shift
Shifts the bits of the number

to the right by the number of
bits specified.
11 >> 1 gives 5. 11 is represented in bits by 1011

which when right shifted by 1 bit gives 101 which is
the decimal 5.
&
Bitwise AND
Bitwise AND of the numbers
5 & 3 gives 1.
Bit-wise OR
Bitwise OR of the numbers
5 | 3 gives 7
Bit-wise XOR
Bitwise XOR of the numbers
5 ^ 3 gives 6
Bit-wise
invert
The bit-wise inversion of x is

-(x+1)
~5 gives -6.
<
Less Than
Returns whether x is less than

y. All comparison operators
return True or False. Note
the capitalization of these
names.
5 < 3 gives False and 3 < 5 gives True.

Comparisons can be chained arbitrarily: 3 < 5 < 7
gives True.
>
Greater Than
Returns whether x is greater

than y
5 > 3 returns True. If both operands are numbers,

they are first converted to a common type.
Otherwise, it always returns False.
<=
Less Than or
Equal To
Returns whether x is less than

or equal to y
x = 3; y = 6; x <= y returns True.
>=
Greater Than
or Equal To
Returns whether x is greater

than or equal to y
x = 4; y = 3; x >= 3 returns True.
==
Equal To
Compares if the objects are

equal
x = 2; y = 2; x == y returns True.
x = 'str'; y = 'stR'; x == y returns False.
x = 'str'; y = 'str'; x == y returns True.
!=
Not Equal To
Compares if the objects are

not equal
x = 2; y = 3; x != y returns True.
not
Boolean NOT
If x is True, it returns False. If x = True; not x returns False.

x is False, it returns True.
and
Boolean AND
x and y returns False if x is

False, else it returns
evaluation of y
x = False; y = True; x and y returns False

since x is False. In this case, Python will not evaluate
y since it knows that the left hand side of the 'and'
expression is False which implies that the whole
expression will be False irrespective of the other
values. This is called short-circuit evaluation.
23
or
Boolean OR
If x is True, it returns True,

else it returns evaluation of y
x = True; y = False; x or y returns True.

Short-circuit evaluation applies here as well.
Shortcut for math operation and assignment

It is common to run a math operation on a variable and then assign the result of the
operation back to the variable, hence there is a shortcut for such expressions:
You can write:
a = 2; a = a * 3
as:
a = 2; a *= 3
Notice that var = var operation expression becomes var operation= expression.
Evaluation Order
If you had an expression such as 2 + 3 * 4, is the addition done first or the multiplication?
Our high school maths tells us that the multiplication should be done first. This means that
the multiplication operator has higher precedence than the addition operator.
The following table gives the precedence table for Python, from the lowest precedence
(least binding) to the highest precedence (most binding). This means that in a given
expression, Python will first evaluate the operators and expressions lower in the table
before the ones listed higher in the table.
The following table, taken from the Python reference manual (http:/ / docs. python. org/
dev/ 3. 0/ reference/ expressions. html#evaluation-order), is provided for the sake of
completeness. It is far better to use parentheses to group operators and operands
appropriately in order to explicitly specify the precedence. This makes the program more
readable. See Changing the Order of Evaluation below for details.
Operator
Description
lambda
Lambda Expression
or
Boolean OR
and
Boolean AND
not x
Boolean NOT
in, not in
Membership tests
is, is not
Identity tests
<, <=, >, >=, !=, ==
Comparisons
Bitwise OR
Bitwise XOR
&
Bitwise AND
<<, >>
Shifts
+, -
Addition and subtraction
*, /, //, %
Multiplication, Division, Floor Division and Remainder
+x, -x
Positive, Negative
24
~x
Bitwise NOT
**
Exponentiation
x.attribute
Attribute reference
x[index]
Subscription
x[index1:index2]
Slicing
f(arguments ...)
Function call
(expressions, ...)
Binding or tuple display
[expressions, ...]
List display
{key:datum, ...}
Dictionary display
The operators which we have not already come across will be explained in later chapters.
Operators with the same precedence are listed in the same row in the above table. For
example, + and - have the same precedence.
Changing the Order Of Evaluation

To make the expressions more readable, we can use parentheses. For example, 2 + (3 *
4) is definitely easier to understand than 2 + 3 * 4 which requires knowledge of the
operator precedences. As with everything else, the parentheses should be used reasonably
(do not overdo it) and should not be redundant (as in 2 + (3 + 4)).
There is an additional advantage to using parentheses - it helps us to change the order of
evaluation. For example, if you want addition to be evaluated before multiplication in an
expression, then you can write something like (2 + 3) * 4.
Associativity
Operators are usually associated from left to right i.e. operators with same precedence are
evaluated in a left to right manner. For example, 2 + 3 + 4 is evaluated as (2 + 3) + 4.
Some operators like assignment operators have right to left associativity i.e. a = b = c is
treated as a = (b = c).
Expressions
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: expression.py
length = 5
breadth = 2
area = length * breadth
print('Area is', area)
print('Perimeter is', 2 * (length + breadth))
Output:
25
$ python expression.py
Area is 10
Perimeter is 14
How It Works:
The length and breadth of the rectangle are stored in variables by the same name. We use
these to calculate the area and perimeter of the rectangle with the help of expressions. We
store the result of the expression length * breadth in the variable area and then print it
using the print function. In the second case, we directly use the value of the expression 2
* (length + breadth) in the print function.
Also, notice how Python 'pretty-prints' the output. Even though we have not specified a
space between 'Area is' and the variable area, Python puts it for us so that we get a
clean nice output and the program is much more readable this way (since we don't need to
worry about spacing in the strings we use for output). This is an example of how Python
makes life easy for the programmer.
Summary
We have seen how to use operators, operands and expressions - these are the basic building
blocks of any program. Next, we will see how to make use of these in our programs using
statements.
26
Python en:Control Flow

Introduction
In the programs we have seen till now, there has always been a series of statements and
Python faithfully executes them in the same order. What if you wanted to change the flow of
how it works? For example, you want the program to take some decisions and do different
things depending on different situations such as printing 'Good Morning' or 'Good Evening'
depending on the time of the day?
As you might have guessed, this is achieved using control flow statements. There are three
control flow statements in Python - if, for and while.
The if statement
The if statement is used to check a condition and if the condition is true, we run a block of
statements (called the if-block), else we process another block of statements (called the
else-block). The else clause is optional.
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: if.py
number = 23
guess = int(input('Enter an integer : '))
if guess == number:
print('Congratulations, you guessed it.') # New block starts here
print('(but you do not win any prizes!)') # New block ends here
elif guess < number:
print('No, it is a little higher than that') # Another block
# You can do whatever you want in a block ...
else:
print('No, it is a little lower than that')
# you must have guess > number to reach here
print('Done')
# This last statement is always executed, after the if statement is
executed
Output:
$ python if.py
Enter an integer : 50
No, it is a little lower than that
Done
$ python if.py
27
No, it is a little higher than that
Done
$ python if.py
Congratulations, you guessed it.
(but you do not win any prizes!)
Done
How It Works:
In this program, we take guesses from the user and check if it is the number that we have.
We set the variable number to any integer we want, say 23. Then, we take the user's guess
using the input() function. Functions are just reusable pieces of programs. We'll read
more about them in the next chapter.
We supply a string to the built-in input function which prints it to the screen and waits for
input from the user. Once we enter something and press enter key, the input() function
returns what we entered, as a string. We then convert this string to an integer using int
and then store it in the variable guess. Actually, the int is a class but all you need to know
right now is that you can use it to convert a string to an integer (assuming the string
contains a valid integer in the text).
Next, we compare the guess of the user with the number we have chosen. If they are equal,
we print a success message. Notice that we use indentation levels to tell Python which
statements belong to which block. This is why indentation is so important in Python. I hope
you are sticking to the "consistent indentation" rule. Are you?
Notice how the if statement contains a colon at the end - we are indicating to Python that
a block of statements follows.
Then, we check if the guess is less than the number, and if so, we inform the user to guess
a little higher than that. What we have used here is the elif clause which actually
combines two related if else-if else statements into one combined if-elif-else
statement. This makes the program easier and reduces the amount of indentation required.
The elif and else statements must also have a colon at the end of the logical line
followed by their corresponding block of statements (with proper indentation, of course)
You can have another if statement inside the if-block of an if statement and so on - this is
called a nested if statement.
Remember that the elif and else parts are optional. A minimal valid if statement is:
if True:
print('Yes, it is true')
After Python has finished executing the complete if statement along with the associated
elif and else clauses, it moves on to the next statement in the block containing the if
statement. In this case, it is the main block where execution of the program starts and the
next statement is the print('Done') statement. After this, Python sees the ends of the
program and simply finishes up.
Although this is a very simple program, I have been pointing out a lot of things that you
should notice even in this simple program. All these are pretty straightforward (and
surprisingly simple for those of you from C/C++ backgrounds) and requires you to become
28
aware of all these initially, but after that, you will become comfortable with it and it'll feel
'natural' to you.
There is no switch statement in Python. You can use an if..elif..else statement to
do the same thing (and in some cases, use a dictionary to do it quickly)
The while Statement

The while statement allows you to repeatedly execute a block of statements as long as a
condition is true. A while statement is an example of what is called a looping statement. A
while statement can have an optional else clause.
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: while.py
number = 23
running = True
while running:
guess = int(input('Enter an integer : '))
if guess == number:
print('Congratulations, you guessed it.')
running = False # this causes the while loop to stop
elif guess < number:
print('No, it is a little higher than that.')
else:
print('No, it is a little lower than that.')
else:
print('The while loop is over.')
# Do anything else you want to do here
print('Done')
Output:
$ python while.py
No, it is a little lower than that.
No, it is a little higher than that.
Congratulations, you guessed it.
The while loop is over.
Done
How It Works:
29
In this program, we are still playing the guessing game, but the advantage is that the user
is allowed to keep guessing until he guesses correctly - there is no need to repeatedly run
the program for each guess, as we have done in the previous section. This aptly
demonstrates the use of the while statement.
We move the input and if statements to inside the while loop and set the variable
running to True before the while loop. First, we check if the variable running is True and
then proceed to execute the corresponding while-block. After this block is executed, the
condition is again checked which in this case is the running variable. If it is true, we
execute the while-block again, else we continue to execute the optional else-block and then
continue to the next statement.
The else block is executed when the while loop condition becomes False - this may even
be the first time that the condition is checked. If there is an else clause for a while loop,
it is always executed unless you break out of the loop with a break statement.
The True and False are called Boolean types and you can consider them to be equivalent
to the value 1 and 0 respectively.
Remember that you can have an else clause for the while loop.
The for loop

The for..in statement is another looping statement which iterates over a sequence of
objects i.e. go through each item in a sequence. We will see more about sequences in detail
in later chapters. What you need to know right now is that a sequence is just an ordered
collection of items.
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: for.py
for i in range(1, 5):
print(i)
else:
print('The for loop is over')
Output:
$ python for.py
1
2
3
4
The for loop is over
How It Works:
In this program, we are printing a sequence of numbers. We generate this sequence of
numbers using the built-in range function.
What we do here is supply it two numbers and range returns a sequence of numbers
starting from the first number and up to the second number. For example, range(1,5)
30
gives the sequence [1, 2, 3, 4]. By default, range takes a step count of 1. If we supply a
third number to range, then that becomes the step count. For example, range(1,5,2)
gives [1,3]. Remember that the range extends up to the second number i.e. it does not
include the second number.
The for loop then iterates over this range - for i in range(1,5) is equivalent to for i
in [1, 2, 3, 4] which is like assigning each number (or object) in the sequence to i, one
at a time, and then executing the block of statements for each value of i. In this case, we
just print the value in the block of statements.
Remember that the else part is optional. When included, it is always executed once after
the for loop is over unless a break statement is encountered.
Remember that the for..in loop works for any sequence. Here, we have a list of numbers
generated by the built-in range function, but in general we can use any kind of sequence of
any kind of objects! We will explore this idea in detail in later chapters.
Note for C/C++/Java/C# Programmers
The Python for loop is radically different from the C/C++ for loop. C# programmers
will note that the for loop in Python is similar to the foreach loop in C#. Java
programmers will note that the same is similar to for (int i : IntArray) in Java
1.5 .
In C/C++, if you want to write for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++), then in Python you
write just for i in range(0,5). As you can see, the for loop is simpler, more
expressive and less error prone in Python.
The break Statement

The break statement is used to break out of a loop statement i.e. stop the execution of a
looping statement, even if the loop condition has not become False or the sequence of
items has been completely iterated over.
An important note is that if you break out of a for or while loop, any corresponding loop
else block is not executed.
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: break.py
while True:
s = (input('Enter something : '))
if s == 'quit':
break
print('Length of the string is', len(s))
print('Done')
Output:
$ python break.py
Enter something : Programming is fun
Length of the string is 18
Enter something : When the work is done
31
Enter something : if you wanna make your work also fun:
Enter something :
use Python!
Enter something : quit
Done
How It Works:
In this program, we repeatedly take the user's input and print the length of each input each
time. We are providing a special condition to stop the program by checking if the user input
is 'quit'. We stop the program by breaking out of the loop and reach the end of the
program.
The length of the input string can be found out using the built-in len function.
Remember that the break statement can be used with the for loop as well.
Swaroop's Poetic Python

The input I have used here is a mini poem I have written called Swaroop's Poetic Python:
Programming is fun
When the work is done
if you wanna make your work also fun:
use Python!
The continue Statement

The continue statement is used to tell Python to skip the rest of the statements in the
current loop block and to continue to the next iteration of the loop.
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: continue.py
while True:
s = input('Enter something : ')
if s == 'quit':
break
if len(s) < 3:
print('Too small')
continue
print('Input is of sufficient length')
# Do other kinds of processing here...
Output:
$ python test.py
Enter something : a
Too small
Enter something : 12
Too small
32
Enter something : abc
Input is of sufficient length
Enter something : quit
How It Works:
In this program, we accept input from the user, but we process them only if they are at
least 3 characters long. So, we use the built-in len function to get the length and if the
length is less than 3, we skip the rest of the statements in the block by using the continue
statement. Otherwise, the rest of the statements in the loop are executed and we can do
any kind of processing we want to do here.
Note that the continue statement works with the for loop as well.
Summary
We have seen how to use the three control flow statements - if, while and for along with
their associated break and continue statements. These are some of the most often used
parts of Python and hence, becoming comfortable with them is essential.
Next, we will see how to create and use functions.
Python en:Functions
Introduction
Functions are reusable pieces of programs. They allow you to give a name to a block of
statements and you can run that block using that name anywhere in your program and any
number of times. This is known as calling the function. We have already used many built-in
functions such as the len and range.
The function concept is probably the most important building block of any non-trivial
software (in any programming language), so we will explore various aspects of functions in
this chapter.
Functions are defined using the def keyword. This is followed by an identifier name for the
function followed by a pair of parentheses which may enclose some names of variables and
the line ends with a colon. Next follows the block of statements that are part of this
function. An example will show that this is actually very simple:
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: function1.py
def sayHello():
print('Hello World!') # block belonging to the function
# End of function
33
Python en:Functions
sayHello() # call the function

sayHello() # call the function again
Output:
$ python function1.py
Hello World!
Hello World!
How It Works:
We define a function called sayHello using the syntax as explained above. This function
takes no parameters and hence there are no variables declared in the parentheses.
Parameters to functions are just input to the function so that we can pass in different values
to it and get back corresponding results.
Notice that we can call the same function twice which means we do not have to write the
same code again.
Function Parameters
A function can take parameters, which are values you supply to the function so that the
function can do something utilising those values. These parameters are just like variables
except that the values of these variables are defined when we call the function and are
already assigned values when the function runs.
Parameters are specified within the pair of parentheses in the function definition, separated
by commas. When we call the function, we supply the values in the same way. Note the
terminology used - the names given in the function definition are called parameters
whereas the values you supply in the function call are called arguments.
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: func_param.py
def printMax(a, b):
if a > b:
print(a, 'is maximum')
elif a == b:
print(a, 'is equal to', b)
else:
print(b, 'is maximum')
printMax(3, 4) # directly give literal values
x = 5
y = 7
printMax(x, y) # give variables as arguments
Output:
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Python en:Functions
$ python func_param.py
4 is maximum
7 is maximum
How It Works:
Here, we define a function called printMax where we take two parameters called a and b.
We find out the greater number using a simple if..else statement and then print the
bigger number.
In the first usage of printMax, we directly supply the numbers i.e. arguments. In the second
usage, we call the function using variables. printMax(x, y) causes value of argument x to
be assigned to parameter a and the value of argument y assigned to parameter b. The
printMax function works the same in both the cases.
Local Variables
When you declare variables inside a function definition, they are not related in any way to
other variables with the same names used outside the function i.e. variable names are local
to the function. This is called the scope of the variable. All variables have the scope of the
block they are declared in starting from the point of definition of the name.
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: func_local.py
x = 50
def func(x):
print('x is', x)
x = 2
print('Changed local x to', x)
func(x)
print('x is still', x)
Output:
$ python func_local.py
x is 50
Changed local x to 2
x is still 50
How It Works:
In the function, the first time that we use the value of the name x, Python uses the value of
the parameter declared in the function.
Next, we assign the value 2 to x. The name x is local to our function. So, when we change
the value of x in the function, the x defined in the main block remains unaffected.
In the last print function call, we display the value of x in the main block and confirm that
it is actually unaffected.
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Python en:Functions
Using The global Statement

If you want to assign a value to a name defined at the top level of the program (i.e. not
inside any kind of scope such as functions or classes), then you have to tell Python that the
name is not local, but it is global. We do this using the global statement. It is impossible to
assign a value to a variable defined outside a function without the global statement.
You can use the values of such variables defined outside the function (assuming there is no
variable with the same name within the function). However, this is not encouraged and
should be avoided since it becomes unclear to the reader of the program as to where that
variable's definition is. Using the global statement makes it amply clear that the variable
is defined in an outermost block.
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: func_global.py
x = 50
def func():
global x
print('x is', x)
x = 2
print('Changed global x to', x)
func()
print('Value of x is', x)
Output:
$ python func_global.py
x is 50
Changed global x to 2
Value of x is 2
How It Works:
The global statement is used to declare that x is a global variable - hence, when we assign
a value to x inside the function, that change is reflected when we use the value of x in the
main block.
You can specify more than one global variable using the same global statement. For
example, global x, y, z.
36
Python en:Functions
Using nonlocal statement

We have seen how to access variables in the local and global scope above. There is another
kind of scope called "nonlocal" scope which is in-between these two types of scopes.
Nonlocal scopes are observed when you define functions inside functions.
Since everything in Python is just executable code, you can define functions anywhere.
Let's take an example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: func_nonlocal.py
def func_outer():
x = 2
print('x is', x)
def func_inner():
nonlocal x
x = 5
func_inner()
print('Changed local x to', x)
func_outer()
Output:
$ python func_nonlocal.py
x is 2
Changed local x to 5
How It Works:
When we are inside func_inner, the 'x' defined in the first line of func_outer is relatively
neither in local scope nor in global scope. We declare that we are using this x by nonlocal
x and hence we get access to that variable.
Try changing the nonlocal x to global x and also by removing the statement itself and
observe the difference in behavior in these two cases.
Default Argument Values

For some functions, you may want to make some of its parameters as optional and use
default values if the user does not want to provide values for such parameters. This is done
with the help of default argument values. You can specify default argument values for
parameters by following the parameter name in the function definition with the assignment
operator (=) followed by the default value.
Note that the default argument value should be a constant. More precisely, the default
argument value should be immutable - this is explained in detail in later chapters. For now,
just remember this.
Example:
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Python en:Functions
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: func_default.py
def say(message, times = 1):
print(message * times)
say('Hello')
say('World', 5)
Output:
$ python func_default.py
Hello
WorldWorldWorldWorldWorld
How It Works:
The function named say is used to print a string as many times as specified. If we don't
supply a value, then by default, the string is printed just once. We achieve this by specifying
a default argument value of 1 to the parameter times.
In the first usage of say, we supply only the string and it prints the string once. In the
second usage of say, we supply both the string and an argument 5 stating that we want to
say the string message 5 times.
Important
Only those parameters which are at the end of the parameter list can be given default
argument values i.e. you cannot have a parameter with a default argument value
before a parameter without a default argument value in the order of parameters
declared in the function parameter list.
This is because the values are assigned to the parameters by position. For example,
def func(a, b=5) is valid, but def func(a=5, b) is not valid.
Keyword Arguments
If you have some functions with many parameters and you want to specify only some of
them, then you can give values for such parameters by naming them - this is called keyword
arguments - we use the name (keyword) instead of the position (which we have been using
all along) to specify the arguments to the function.
There are two advantages - one, using the function is easier since we do not need to worry
about the order of the arguments. Two, we can give values to only those parameters which
we want, provided that the other parameters have default argument values.
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: func_key.py
def func(a, b=5, c=10):
print('a is', a, 'and b is', b, 'and c is', c)
func(3, 7)
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Python en:Functions
func(25, c=24)
func(c=50, a=100)
Output:
$ python func_key.py
a is 3 and b is 7 and c is 10
How It Works:
The function named func has one parameter without default argument values, followed by
two parameters with default argument values.
In the first usage, func(3, 7), the parameter a gets the value 3, the parameter b gets the
value 7 and c gets the default value of 10.
In the second usage func(25, c=24), the variable a gets the value of 25 due to the position
of the argument. Then, the parameter c gets the value of 24 due to naming i.e. keyword
arguments. The variable b gets the default value of 5.
In the third usage func(c=50, a=100), we use keyword arguments completely to specify
the values. Notice, that we are specifying value for parameter c before that for a even
though a is defined before c in the function definition.
VarArgs parameters
TODO
Should I write about this in a later chapter since we haven't talked about lists and
dictionaries yet?
Sometimes you might want to define a function that can take any number of parameters,
this can be achieved by using the stars:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: total.py
def total(initial=5, *numbers, **keywords):
count = initial
for number in numbers:
count += number
for key in keywords:
count += keywords[key]
return count
print(total(10, 1, 2, 3, vegetables=50, fruits=100))
Output:
$ python total.py
166
How It Works:
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Python en:Functions
When we declare a starred parameter such as *param, then all the positional arguments
from that point till the end are collected as a list called 'param'.
Similarly, when we declare a double-starred parameter such as **param, then all the
keyword arguments from that point till the end are collected as a dictionary called 'param'.
We will explore lists and dictionaries in a later chapter.
Keyword-only Parameters
If we want to specify certain keyword parameters to be available as keyword-only and not
as positional arguments, they can be declared after a starred parameter:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: keyword_only.py
def total(initial=5, *numbers, vegetables):
count = initial
for number in numbers:
count += number
count += vegetables
return count
print(total(10, 1, 2, 3, vegetables=50))
print(total(10, 1, 2, 3))
# Raises error because we have not supplied a default argument value
for 'vegetables'
Output:
$ python keyword_only.py
66
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "test.py", line 12, in <module>
print(total(10, 1, 2, 3))
TypeError: total() needs keyword-only argument vegetables
How It Works:
Declaring parameters after a starred parameter results in keyword-only arguments. If these
arguments are not supplied a default value, then calls to the function will raise an error if
the keyword argument is not supplied, as seen above.
If you want to have keyword-only arguments but have no need for a starred parameter, then
simply use an empty star without using any name such as def total(initial=5, *,
vegetables).
40
Python en:Functions
The return Statement

The return statement is used to return from a function i.e. break out of the function. We
can optionally return a value from the function as well.
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: func_return.py
def maximum(x, y):
if x > y:
return x
else:
return y
print(maximum(2, 3))
Output:
$ python func_return.py
3
How It Works:
The maximum function returns the maximum of the parameters, in this case the numbers
supplied to the function. It uses a simple if..else statement to find the greater value and
then returns that value.
Note that a return statement without a value is equivalent to return None. None is a
special type in Python that represents nothingness. For example, it is used to indicate that a
variable has no value if it has a value of None.
Every function implicitly contains a return None statement at the end unless you have
written your own return statement. You can see this by running print(someFunction())
where the function someFunction does not use the return statement such as:
def someFunction():
pass
The pass statement is used in Python to indicate an empty block of statements.
Note
There is a built-in function called max that already implements the 'find maximum'
functionality, so use this built-in function whenever possible.
41
Python en:Functions
DocStrings
Python has a nifty feature called documentation strings, usually referred to by its shorter
name docstrings. DocStrings are an important tool that you should make use of since it
helps to document the program better and makes it easier to understand. Amazingly, we
can even get the docstring back from, say a function, when the program is actually running!
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: func_doc.py
def printMax(x, y):
'''Prints the maximum of two numbers.
The two values must be integers.'''
x = int(x) # convert to integers, if possible
y = int(y)
if x > y:
print(x, 'is maximum')
else:
print(y, 'is maximum')
printMax(3, 5)
print(printMax.__doc__)
Output:
$ python func_doc.py
5 is maximum
Prints the maximum of two numbers.
The two values must be integers.
How It Works:
A string on the first logical line of a function is the docstring for that function. Note that
DocStrings also apply to modules and classes which we will learn about in the respective
chapters.
The convention followed for a docstring is a multi-line string where the first line starts with
a capital letter and ends with a dot. Then the second line is blank followed by any detailed
explanation starting from the third line. You are strongly advised to follow this convention
for all your docstrings for all your non-trivial functions.
We can access the docstring of the printMax function using the __doc__ (notice the
double underscores) attribute (name belonging to) of the function. Just remember that
Python treats everything as an object and this includes functions. We'll learn more about
objects in the chapter on classes.
If you have used help() in Python, then you have already seen the usage of docstrings!
What it does is just fetch the __doc__ attribute of that function and displays it in a neat
manner for you. You can try it out on the function above - just include help(printMax) in
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Python en:Functions
your program. Remember to press the q key to exit help.
Automated tools can retrieve the documentation from your program in this manner.
Therefore, I strongly recommend that you use docstrings for any non-trivial function that
you write. The pydoc command that comes with your Python distribution works similarly to
help() using docstrings.
Annotations
Functions have another advanced feature called annotations which are a nifty way of
attaching additional information for each of the parameters as well as the return value.
Since the Python language itself does not interpret these annotations in any way (that
functionality is left to third-party libraries to interpret in any way they want), we will skip
this feature in our discussion. If you are interested to read about annotations, please see
the Python Enhancement Proposal No. 3107 (http:/ / www. python. org/ dev/ peps/
pep-3107/).
Summary
We have seen so many aspects of functions but note that we still haven't covered all aspects
of it. However, we have already covered most of what you'll use regarding Python functions
on an everyday basis.
Next, we will see how to use as well as create Python modules.
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Python en:Modules
Python en:Modules
Introduction
You have seen how you can reuse code in your program by defining functions once. What if
you wanted to reuse a number of functions in other programs that you write? As you might
have guessed, the answer is modules.
There are various methods of writing modules, but the simplest way is to create a file with a
.py extension that contains functions and variables.
Another method is to write the modules in the native language in which the Python
interpreter itself was written. For example, you can write modules in the C programming
language (http:/ / docs. python. org/ extending/ ) and when compiled, they can be used from
your Python code when using the standard Python interpreter.
A module can be imported by another program to make use of its functionality. This is how
we can use the Python standard library as well. First, we will see how to use the standard
library modules.
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: using_sys.py
import sys
print('The command line arguments are:')
for i in sys.argv:
print(i)
print('\n\nThe PYTHONPATH is', sys.path, '\n')
Output:
$ python using_sys.py we are arguments
The command line arguments are:
using_sys.py
we
are
arguments
The PYTHONPATH is ['', 'C:\\Windows\\system32\\python30.zip',
'C:\\Python30\\DLLs', 'C:\\Python30\\lib',
'C:\\Python30\\lib\\plat-win', 'C:\\Python30',
'C:\\Python30\\lib\\site-packages']
How It Works:
First, we import the sys module using the import statement. Basically, this translates to
us telling Python that we want to use this module. The sys module contains functionality
related to the Python interpreter and its environment i.e. the system.
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Python en:Modules
When Python executes the import sys statement, it looks for the sys module. In this case,
it is one of the built-in modules, and hence Python knows where to find it.
If it was not a compiled module i.e. a module written in Python, then the Python interpreter
will search for it in the directories listed in its sys.path variable. If the module is found,
then the statements in the body of that module is run and then the module is made
available for you to use. Note that the initialization is done only the first time that we
import a module.
The argv variable in the sys module is accessed using the dotted notation i.e. sys.argv. It
clearly indicates that this name is part of the sys module. Another advantage of this
approach is that the name does not clash with any argv variable used in your program.
The sys.argv variable is a list of strings (lists are explained in detail in a later chapter.
Specifically, the sys.argv contains the list of command line arguments i.e. the arguments
passed to your program using the command line.
If you are using an IDE to write and run these programs, look for a way to specify command
line arguments to the program in the menus.
Here, when we execute python using_sys.py we are arguments, we run the module
using_sys.py with the python command and the other things that follow are arguments
passed to the program. Python stores the command line arguments in the sys.argv
variable for us to use.
Remember, the name of the script running is always the first argument in the sys.argv
list. So, in this case we will have 'using_sys.py' as sys.argv[0], 'we' as sys.argv[1],
'are' as sys.argv[2] and 'arguments' as sys.argv[3]. Notice that Python starts
counting from 0 and not 1.
The sys.path contains the list of directory names where modules are imported from.
Observe that the first string in sys.path is empty - this empty string indicates that the
current directory is also part of the sys.path which is same as the PYTHONPATH
environment variable. This means that you can directly import modules located in the
current directory. Otherwise, you will have to place your module in one of the directories
listed in sys.path.
Note that the current directory is the directory from which the program is launched. Run
import os; print(os.getcwd()) to find out the current directory of your program.
Byte-compiled .pyc files

Importing a module is a relatively costly affair, so Python does some tricks to make it faster.
One way is to create byte-compiled files with the extension .pyc which is an intermediate
form that Python transforms the program into (remember the introduction section on how
Python works?). This .pyc file is useful when you import the module the next time from a
different program - it will be much faster since a portion of the processing required in
importing a module is already done. Also, these byte-compiled files are
platform-independent.
Note
These .pyc files are usually created in the same directory as the corresponding .py
files. If Python does not have permission to write to files in that directory, then the
.pyc files will not be created.
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Python en:Modules
The from ...import ...statement

If you want to directly import the argv variable into your program (to avoid typing the
sys. everytime for it), then you can use the from sys import argv statement. If you want
to import all the names used in the sys module, then you can use the from sys import *
statement. This works for any module.
In general, you should avoid using this statement and use the import statement instead
since your program will avoid name clashes and will be more readable.
A module's __name__
Every module has a name and statements in a module can find out the name of its module.
This is handy in the particular situation of figuring out if the module is being run standalone
or being imported. As mentioned previously, when a module is imported for the first time,
the code in that module is executed. We can use this concept to alter the behavior of the
module if the program was used by itself and not when it was imported from another
module. This can be achieved using the __name__ attribute of the module.
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: using_name.py
if __name__ == '__main__':
print('This program is being run by itself')
else:
print('I am being imported from another module')
Output:
$ python using_name.py
This program is being run by itself
$ python
>>> import using_name
I am being imported from another module
>>>
How It Works:
Every Python module has it's __name__ defined and if this is '__main__', it implies that the
module is being run standalone by the user and we can take appropriate actions.
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Python en:Modules
Making Your Own Modules

Creating your own modules is easy, you've been doing it all along! This is because every
Python program is also a module. You just have to make sure it has a .py extension. The
following example should make it clear.
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: mymodule.py
def sayhi():
print('Hi, this is mymodule speaking.')
__version__ = '0.1'
# End of mymodule.py
The above was a sample module. As you can see, there is nothing particularly special about
compared to our usual Python program. We will next see how to use this module in our
other Python programs.
Remember that the module should be placed in the same directory as the program that we
import it in, or the module should be in one of the directories listed in sys.path.
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: mymodule_demo.py
import mymodule
mymodule.sayhi()
print ('Version', mymodule.__version__)
Output:
$ python mymodule_demo.py
Hi, this is mymodule speaking.
Version 0.1
How It Works:
Notice that we use the same dotted notation to access members of the module. Python
makes good reuse of the same notation to give the distinctive 'Pythonic' feel to it so that we
don't have to keep learning new ways to do things.
Here is a version utilising the from..import syntax:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: mymodule_demo2.py
from mymodule import sayhi, __version__
sayhi()
print('Version', __version__)
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Python en:Modules
The output of mymodule_demo2.py is same as the output of mymodule_demo.py.
Notice that if there was already a __version__ name declared in the module that imports
mymodule, there would be a clash. This is also likely because it is common practice for each
module to declare it's version number using this name. Hence, it is always recommended to
prefer the import statement even though it might make your program a little longer.
You could also use:
from mymodule import *
This will import all public names such as sayhi but would not import __version__
because it starts with double underscores.
Zen of Python
One of Python's guiding principles is that "Explicit is better than Implicit". Run import
this to learn more and see this discussion (http:/ / stackoverflow. com/ questions/
228181/zen-of-python) which lists examples for each of the principles.
The dir function

You can use the built-in dir function to list the identifiers that an object defines. For
example, for a module, the identifiers include the functions, classes and variables defined in
that module.
When you supply a module name to the dir() function, it returns the list of the names
defined in that module. When no argument is applied to it, it returns the list of names
defined in the current module.
Example:
$ python
>>> import sys # get list of attributes, in this case, for the sys module
>>> dir(sys)
['__displayhook__', '__doc__', '__excepthook__', '__name__',
'__package__', '__s
tderr__', '__stdin__', '__stdout__', '_clear_type_cache',
'_compact_freelists',
'_current_frames', '_getframe', 'api_version', 'argv',
'builtin_module_names', '
byteorder', 'call_tracing', 'callstats', 'copyright', 'displayhook',
'dllhandle'
, 'dont_write_bytecode', 'exc_info', 'excepthook', 'exec_prefix',
'executable',
'exit', 'flags', 'float_info', 'getcheckinterval',
'getdefaultencoding', 'getfil
esystemencoding', 'getprofile', 'getrecursionlimit', 'getrefcount',
'getsizeof',
'gettrace', 'getwindowsversion', 'hexversion', 'intern', 'maxsize',
'maxunicode
', 'meta_path', 'modules', 'path', 'path_hooks', 'path_importer_cache',
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Python en:Modules
'platfor
m', 'prefix', 'ps1', 'ps2', 'setcheckinterval', 'setprofile',
'setrecursionlimit
', 'settrace', 'stderr', 'stdin', 'stdout', 'subversion', 'version',
'version_in
fo', 'warnoptions', 'winver']
>>> dir() # get list of attributes for current module
['__builtins__', '__doc__', '__name__', '__package__', 'sys']
>>> a = 5 # create a new variable 'a'
>>> dir()
['__builtins__', '__doc__', '__name__', '__package__', 'a', 'sys']
>>> del a # delete/remove a name
>>> dir()
['__builtins__', '__doc__', '__name__', '__package__', 'sys']
>>>
How It Works:
First, we see the usage of dir on the imported sys module. We can see the huge list of
attributes that it contains.
Next, we use the dir function without passing parameters to it. By default, it returns the
list of attributes for the current module. Notice that the list of imported modules is also part
of this list.
In order to observe the dir in action, we define a new variable a and assign it a value and
then check dir and we observe that there is an additional value in the list of the same
name. We remove the variable/attribute of the current module using the del statement and
the change is reflected again in the output of the dir function.
A note on del - this statement is used to delete a variable/name and after the statement
has run, in this case del a, you can no longer access the variable a - it is as if it never
existed before at all.
Note that the dir() function works on any object. For example, run dir(print) to learn
about the attributes of the print function, or dir(str) for the attributes of the str class.
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Python en:Modules
Packages
By now, you must have started observing the hierarchy of organizing your programs.
Variables usually go inside functions. Functions and global variables usually go inside
modules. What if you wanted to organize modules? That's where packages come into the
picture.
Packages are just folders of modules with a special __init__.py file that indicates to
Python that this folder is special because it contains Python modules.
Let's say you want to create a package called 'world' with subpackages 'asia', 'africa', etc.
and these subpackages in turn contain modules like 'india', 'madagascar', etc.
This is how you would structure the folders:
- <some folder present in the sys.path>/
- world/
- __init__.py
- asia/
- __init__.py
- india/
- __init__.py
- foo.py
- africa/
- __init__.py
- madagascar/
- __init__.py
- bar.py
Packages are just a convenience to hierarchically organize modules. You will see many
instances of this in the standard library.
Summary
Just like functions are reusable parts of programs, modules are reusable programs.
Packages are another hierarchy to organize modules. The standard library that comes with
Python is an example of such a set of packages and modules.
We have seen how to use these modules and create our own modules.
Next, we will learn about some interesting concepts called data structures.
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Python en:Data Structures

Introduction
Data structures are basically just that - they are structures which can hold some data
together. In other words, they are used to store a collection of related data.
There are four built-in data structures in Python - list, tuple, dictionary and set. We will see
how to use each of them and how they make life easier for us.
List
A list is a data structure that holds an ordered collection of items i.e. you can store a
sequence of items in a list. This is easy to imagine if you can think of a shopping list where
you have a list of items to buy, except that you probably have each item on a separate line
in your shopping list whereas in Python you put commas in between them.
The list of items should be enclosed in square brackets so that Python understands that you
are specifying a list. Once you have created a list, you can add, remove or search for items
in the list. Since we can add and remove items, we say that a list is a mutable data type i.e.
this type can be altered.
Quick Introduction To Objects And Classes

Although I've been generally delaying the discussion of objects and classes till now, a little
explanation is needed right now so that you can understand lists better. We will explore this
topic in detail later in its own chapter.
A list is an example of usage of objects and classes. When we use a variable i and assign a
value to it, say integer 5 to it, you can think of it as creating an object (i.e. instance) i of
class (i.e. type) int. In fact, you can read help(int) to understand this better.
A class can also have methods i.e. functions defined for use with respect to that class only.
You can use these pieces of functionality only when you have an object of that class. For
example, Python provides an append method for the list class which allows you to add an
item to the end of the list. For example, mylist.append('an item') will add that string to
the list mylist. Note the use of dotted notation for accessing methods of the objects.
A class can also have fields which are nothing but variables defined for use with respect to
that class only. You can use these variables/names only when you have an object of that
class. Fields are also accessed by the dotted notation, for example, mylist.field.
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: using_list.py
# This is my shopping list
shoplist = ['apple', 'mango', 'carrot', 'banana']
print('I have', len(shoplist), 'items to purchase.')
print('These items are:', end=' ')
51
for item in shoplist:
print(item, end=' ')
print('\nI also have to buy rice.')
shoplist.append('rice')
print('My shopping list is now', shoplist)
print('I will sort my list now')
shoplist.sort()
print('Sorted shopping list is', shoplist)
print('The first item I will buy is', shoplist[0])
olditem = shoplist[0]
del shoplist[0]
print('I bought the', olditem)
print('My shopping list is now', shoplist)
Output:
$ python using_list.py
I have 4 items to purchase.
These items are: apple mango carrot banana
I also have to buy rice.
My shopping list is now ['apple', 'mango', 'carrot', 'banana',
'rice']
I will sort my list now
Sorted shopping list is ['apple', 'banana', 'carrot', 'mango',
'rice']
The first item I will buy is apple
I bought the apple
My shopping list is now ['banana', 'carrot', 'mango', 'rice']
How It Works:
The variable shoplist is a shopping list for someone who is going to the market. In
shoplist, we only store strings of the names of the items to buy but you can add any kind
of object to a list including numbers and even other lists.
We have also used the for..in loop to iterate through the items of the list. By now, you
must have realised that a list is also a sequence. The speciality of sequences will be
discussed in a later section.
Notice the use of the end keyword argument to the print function to indicate that we
want to end the output with a space instead of the usual line break.
Next, we add an item to the list using the append method of the list object, as already
discussed before. Then, we check that the item has been indeed added to the list by
printing the contents of the list by simply passing the list to the print statement which
prints it neatly.
Then, we sort the list by using the sort method of the list. It is important to understand
that this method affects the list itself and does not return a modified list - this is different
from the way strings work. This is what we mean by saying that lists are mutable and that
52
strings are immutable.
Next, when we finish buying an item in the market, we want to remove it from the list. We
achieve this by using the del statement. Here, we mention which item of the list we want
to remove and the del statement removes it from the list for us. We specify that we want to
remove the first item from the list and hence we use del shoplist[0] (remember that
Python starts counting from 0).
If you want to know all the methods defined by the list object, see help(list) for details.
Tuple
Tuples are used to hold together multiple objects. Think of them as similar to lists, but
without the extensive functionality that the list class gives you. One major feature of tuples
is that they are immutable like strings i.e. you cannot modify tuples.
Tuples are defined by specifying items separated by commas within an optional pair of
parentheses.
Tuples are usually used in cases where a statement or a user-defined function can safely
assume that the collection of values i.e. the tuple of values used will not change.
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: using_tuple.py
zoo = ('python', 'elephant', 'penguin') # remember the parentheses are
optional
print('Number of animals in the zoo is', len(zoo))
new_zoo = ('monkey', 'camel', zoo)
print('Number of cages in the new zoo is', len(new_zoo))
print('All animals in new zoo are', new_zoo)
print('Animals brought from old zoo are', new_zoo[2])
print('Last animal brought from old zoo is', new_zoo[2][2])
print('Number of animals in the new zoo is',
len(new_zoo)-1+len(new_zoo[2]))
Output:
$ python using_tuple.py
Number of animals in the zoo is 3
Number of cages in the new zoo is 3
All animals in new zoo are ('monkey', 'camel', ('python',
'elephant', 'penguin'))
Animals brought from old zoo are ('python', 'elephant', 'penguin')
Last animal brought from old zoo is penguin
Number of animals in the new zoo is 5
How It Works:
The variable zoo refers to a tuple of items. We see that the len function can be used to get
the length of the tuple. This also indicates that a tuple is a sequence as well.
53
We are now shifting these animals to a new zoo since the old zoo is being closed. Therefore,
the new_zoo tuple contains some animals which are already there along with the animals
brought over from the old zoo. Back to reality, note that a tuple within a tuple does not lose
its identity.
We can access the items in the tuple by specifying the item's position within a pair of
square brackets just like we did for lists. This is called the indexing operator. We access the
third item in new_zoo by specifying new_zoo[2] and we access the third item within the
third item in the new_zoo tuple by specifying new_zoo[2][2]. This is pretty simple once
you've understood the idiom.
Parentheses
Although the parentheses is optional, I prefer always having them to make it obvious
that it is a tuple, especially because it avoids ambiguity. For example, print(1,2,3)
and print( (1,2,3) ) mean two different things - the former prints three numbers
whereas the latter prints a tuple (which contains three numbers).
Tuple with 0 or 1 items
An empty tuple is constructed by an empty pair of parentheses such as myempty = ().
However, a tuple with a single item is not so simple. You have to specify it using a
comma following the first (and only) item so that Python can differentiate between a
tuple and a pair of parentheses surrounding the object in an expression i.e. you have to
specify singleton = (2 , ) if you mean you want a tuple containing the item 2.
Note for Perl programmers
A list within a list does not lose its identity i.e. lists are not flattened as in Perl. The
same applies to a tuple within a tuple, or a tuple within a list, or a list within a tuple,
etc. As far as Python is concerned, they are just objects stored using another object,
that's all.
Dictionary
A dictionary is like an address-book where you can find the address or contact details of a
person by knowing only his/her name i.e. we associate keys (name) with values (details).
Note that the key must be unique just like you cannot find out the correct information if you
have two persons with the exact same name.
Note that you can use only immutable objects (like strings) for the keys of a dictionary but
you can use either immutable or mutable objects for the values of the dictionary. This
basically translates to say that you should use only simple objects for keys.
Pairs of keys and values are specified in a dictionary by using the notation d = {key1 :
value1, key2 : value2 }. Notice that the key-value pairs are separated by a colon and the
pairs are separated themselves by commas and all this is enclosed in a pair of curly braces.
Remember that key-value pairs in a dictionary are not ordered in any manner. If you want a
particular order, then you will have to sort them yourself before using it.
The dictionaries that you will be using are instances/objects of the dict class.
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: using_dict.py
54
# 'ab' is short for 'a'ddress'b'ook
ab = {
'Swaroop'
'Larry'
'Matsumoto'
'Spammer'
:
:
:
:
'swaroop@swaroopch.com',
'larry@wall.org',
'matz@ruby-lang.org',
'spammer@hotmail.com'
}
print("Swaroop's address is", ab['Swaroop'])
# Deleting a key-value pair
del ab['Spammer']
print('\nThere are {0} contacts in the address-book\n'.format(len(ab)))
for name, address in ab.items():
print('Contact {0} at {1}'.format(name, address))
# Adding a key-value pair
ab['Guido'] = 'guido@python.org'
if 'Guido' in ab: # OR ab.has_key('Guido')
print("\nGuido's address is", ab['Guido'])
Output:
$ python using_dict.py
Swaroop's address is swaroop@swaroopch.com
There are 3 contacts in the address-book
Contact Swaroop at swaroop@swaroopch.com
Contact Matsumoto at matz@ruby-lang.org
Contact Larry at larry@wall.org
Guido's address is guido@python.org
How It Works:
We create the dictionary ab using the notation already discussed. We then access key-value
pairs by specifying the key using the indexing operator as discussed in the context of lists
and tuples. Observe the simple syntax.
We can delete key-value pairs using our old friend - the del statement. We simply specify
the dictionary and the indexing operator for the key to be removed and pass it to the del
statement. There is no need to know the value corresponding to the key for this operation.
Next, we access each key-value pair of the dictionary using the items method of the
dictionary which returns a list of tuples where each tuple contains a pair of items - the key
followed by the value. We retrieve this pair and assign it to the variables name and address
correspondingly for each pair using the for..in loop and then print these values in the
55
for-block.
We can add new key-value pairs by simply using the indexing operator to access a key and
assign that value, as we have done for Guido in the above case.
We can check if a key-value pair exists using the in operator or even the has_key method
of the dict class. You can see the documentation for the complete list of methods of the
dict class using help(dict).
Keyword Arguments and Dictionaries
On a different note, if you have used keyword arguments in your functions, you have
already used dictionaries! Just think about it - the key-value pair is specified by you in
the parameter list of the function definition and when you access variables within your
function, it is just a key access of a dictionary (which is called the symbol table in
compiler design terminology).
Sequences
Lists, tuples and strings are examples of sequences, but what are sequences and what is so
special about them?
The major features is that they have membership tests (i.e. the in and not in expressions)
and indexing operations. The indexing operation which allows us to fetch a particular item
in the sequence directly.
The three types of sequences mentioned above - lists, tuples and strings, also have a
slicing operation which allows us to retrieve a slice of the sequence i.e. a part of the
sequence.
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: seq.py
name = 'swaroop'
# Indexing or 'Subscription' operation
print('Item 0 is', shoplist[0])
print('Item -1 is', shoplist[-1])
print('Item -2 is', shoplist[-2])
print('Character 0 is', name[0])
# Slicing on a list
print('Item 1 to 3 is', shoplist[1:3])
print('Item 2 to end is', shoplist[2:])
print('Item 1 to -1 is', shoplist[1:-1])
print('Item start to end is', shoplist[:])
# Slicing on a string
56
print('characters 1 to 3 is', name[1:3])
print('characters 2 to end is', name[2:])
print('characters 1 to -1 is', name[1:-1])
print('characters start to end is', name[:])
Output:
$ python seq.py
Item 0 is apple
Item 1 is mango
Item 2 is carrot
Item 3 is banana
Item -1 is banana
Item -2 is carrot
Character 0 is s
Item 1 to 3 is ['mango', 'carrot']
Item 2 to end is ['carrot', 'banana']
Item 1 to -1 is ['mango', 'carrot']
Item start to end is ['apple', 'mango', 'carrot', 'banana']
characters 1 to 3 is wa
characters 2 to end is aroop
characters 1 to -1 is waroo
characters start to end is swaroop
How It Works:
First, we see how to use indexes to get individual items of a sequence. This is also referred
to as the subscription operation. Whenever you specify a number to a sequence within
square brackets as shown above, Python will fetch you the item corresponding to that
position in the sequence. Remember that Python starts counting numbers from 0. Hence,
shoplist[0] fetches the first item and shoplist[3] fetches the fourth item in the
shoplist sequence.
The index can also be a negative number, in which case, the position is calculated from the
end of the sequence. Therefore, shoplist[-1] refers to the last item in the sequence and
shoplist[-2] fetches the second last item in the sequence.
The slicing operation is used by specifying the name of the sequence followed by an
optional pair of numbers separated by a colon within square brackets. Note that this is very
similar to the indexing operation you have been using till now. Remember the numbers are
optional but the colon isn't.
The first number (before the colon) in the slicing operation refers to the position from
where the slice starts and the second number (after the colon) indicates where the slice will
stop at. If the first number is not specified, Python will start at the beginning of the
sequence. If the second number is left out, Python will stop at the end of the sequence.
Note that the slice returned starts at the start position and will end just before the end
position i.e. the start position is included but the end position is excluded from the
sequence slice.
Thus, shoplist[1:3] returns a slice of the sequence starting at position 1, includes
position 2 but stops at position 3 and therefore a slice of two items is returned. Similarly,
shoplist[:] returns a copy of the whole sequence.
57
You can also do slicing with negative positions. Negative numbers are used for positions
from the end of the sequence. For example, shoplist[:-1] will return a slice of the
sequence which excludes the last item of the sequence but contains everything else.
You can also provide a third argument for the slice, which is the step for the slicing (by
default, the step size is 1):
>>> shoplist = ['apple', 'mango', 'carrot', 'banana']
>>> shoplist[::1]
['apple', 'mango', 'carrot', 'banana']
>>> shoplist[::2]
['apple', 'carrot']
>>> shoplist[::3]
['apple', 'banana']
>>> shoplist[::-1]
['banana', 'carrot', 'mango', 'apple']
Notice that when the step is 2, we get the items with position 0, 2, ... When the step size is
3, we get the items with position 0, 3, etc.
Try various combinations of such slice specifications using the Python interpreter
interactively i.e. the prompt so that you can see the results immediately. The great thing
about sequences is that you can access tuples, lists and strings all in the same way!
Set
Sets are unordered collections of simple objects. These are used when the existence of an
object in a collection is more important than the order or how many times it occurs.
Using sets, you can test for membership, whether it is a subset of another set, find the
intersection between two sets, and so on.
>>> bri = set(['brazil', 'russia', 'india'])
>>> 'india' in bri
True
>>> 'usa' in bri
False
>>> bric = bri.copy()
>>> bric.add('china')
>>> bric.issuperset(bri)
True
>>> bri.remove('russia')
>>> bri & bric # OR bri.intersection(bric)
{'brazil', 'india'}
How It Works:
The example is pretty much self-explanatory because it involves basic set theory
mathematics taught in school.
58
References
When you create an object and assign it to a variable, the variable only refers to the object
and does not represent the object itself! That is, the variable name points to that part of
your computer's memory where the object is stored. This is called as binding of the name
to the object.
Generally, you don't need to be worried about this, but there is a subtle effect due to
references which you need to be aware of:
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: reference.py
print('Simple Assignment')
mylist = shoplist # mylist is just another name pointing to the same
object!
del shoplist[0] # I purchased the first item, so I remove it from the
list
print('shoplist is', shoplist)
print('mylist is', mylist)
# notice that both shoplist and mylist both print the same list without
# the 'apple' confirming that they point to the same object
print('Copy by making a full slice')
mylist = shoplist[:] # make a copy by doing a full slice
del mylist[0] # remove first item
print('shoplist is', shoplist)
print('mylist is', mylist)
# notice that now the two lists are different
Output:
$ python reference.py
Simple Assignment
shoplist is ['mango', 'carrot', 'banana']
mylist is ['mango', 'carrot', 'banana']
Copy by making a full slice
shoplist is ['mango', 'carrot', 'banana']
mylist is ['carrot', 'banana']
How It Works:
Most of the explanation is available in the comments.
Remember that if you want to make a copy of a list or such kinds of sequences or complex
objects (not simple objects such as integers), then you have to use the slicing operation to
make a copy. If you just assign the variable name to another name, both of them will refer
59
to the same object and this could be trouble if you are not careful.
Note for Perl programmers
Remember that an assignment statement for lists does not create a copy. You have to
use slicing operation to make a copy of the sequence.
More About Strings

We have already discussed strings in detail earlier. What more can there be to know? Well,
did you know that strings are also objects and have methods which do everything from
checking part of a string to stripping spaces!
The strings that you use in program are all objects of the class str. Some useful methods of
this class are demonstrated in the next example. For a complete list of such methods, see
help(str).
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: str_methods.py
name = 'Swaroop' # This is a string object
if name.startswith('Swa'):
print('Yes, the string starts with "Swa"')
if 'a' in name:
print('Yes, it contains the string "a"')
if name.find('war') != -1:
print('Yes, it contains the string "war"')
delimiter = '_*_'
mylist = ['Brazil', 'Russia', 'India', 'China']
print(delimiter.join(mylist))
Output:
$ python str_methods.py
Yes, the string starts with "Swa"
Yes, it contains the string "a"
Yes, it contains the string "war"
Brazil_*_Russia_*_India_*_China
How It Works:
Here, we see a lot of the string methods in action. The startswith method is used to find
out whether the string starts with the given string. The in operator is used to check if a
given string is a part of the string.
The find method is used to do find the position of the given string in the string or returns
-1 if it is not successful to find the substring. The str class also has a neat method to join
the items of a sequence with the string acting as a delimiter between each item of the
sequence and returns a bigger string generated from this.
60
Summary
We have explored the various built-in data structures of Python in detail. These data
structures will be essential for writing programs of reasonable size.
Now that we have a lot of the basics of Python in place, we will next see how to design and
write a real-world Python program.
Python en:Problem Solving

We have explored various parts of the Python language and now we will take a look at how
all these parts fit together, by designing and writing a program which does something
useful. The idea is to learn how to write a Python script on your own.
The Problem
The problem is "I want a program which creates a backup of all my important files".
Although, this is a simple problem, there is not enough information for us to get started
with the solution. A little more analysis is required. For example, how do we specify which
files are to be backed up? How are they stored? Where are they stored?
After analyzing the problem properly, we design our program. We make a list of things
about how our program should work. In this case, I have created the following list on how I
want it to work. If you do the design, you may not come up with the same kind of analysis
since every person has their own way of doing things, so that is perfectly okay.
1.
2.
3.
4.
The
The
The
The
files and directories to be backed up are specified in a list.

backup must be stored in a main backup directory.
files are backed up into a zip file.
name of the zip archive is the current date and time.
5. We use the standard zip command available by default in any standard Linux/Unix
distribution. Windows users can install (http:// gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/downlinks/
zip.php) from the GnuWin32 project page (http:// gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/
zip.htm) and add C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin to your system PATH environment
variable, similar to what we did for recognizing the python command itself. Note that you
can use any archiving command you want as long as it has a command line interface so
that we can pass arguments to it from our script.
61
The Solution
As the design of our program is now reasonably stable, we can write the code which is an
implementation of our solution.
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: backup_ver1.py
import os
import time
# 1. The files and directories to be backed up are specified in a list.
source = ['"C:\\My Documents"', 'C:\\Code']
# Notice we had to use double quotes inside the string for names with
spaces in it.
# 2. The backup must be stored in a main backup directory
target_dir = 'E:\\Backup' # Remember to change this to what you will be
using
# 3. The files are backed up into a zip file.
# 4. The name of the zip archive is the current date and time
target = target_dir + os.sep + time.strftime('%Y%m%d%H%M%S') + '.zip'
# 5. We use the zip command to put the files in a zip archive
zip_command = "zip -qr {0} {1}".format(target, ' '.join(source))
# Run the backup
if os.system(zip_command) == 0:
print('Successful backup to', target)
else:
print('Backup FAILED')
Output:
$ python backup_ver1.py
Successful backup to E:\Backup\20080702185040.zip
Now, we are in the testing phase where we test that our program works properly. If it
doesn't behave as expected, then we have to debug our program i.e. remove the bugs
(errors) from the program.
If the above program does not work for you, put a print(zip_command) just before the
os.system call and run the program. Now copy/paste the printed zip_command to the shell
prompt and see if it runs properly on its own. If this command fails, check the zip command
manual on what could be wrong. If this command succeeds, then check the Python program
if it exactly matches the program written above.
How It Works:
You will notice how we have converted our design into code in a step-by-step manner.
62
We make use of the os and time modules by first importing them. Then, we specify the
files and directories to be backed up in the source list. The target directory is where store
all the backup files and this is specified in the target_dir variable. The name of the zip
archive that we are going to create is the current date and time which we find out using the
time.strftime() function. It will also have the .zip extension and will be stored in the
target_dir directory.
Notice the use of os.sep variable - this gives the directory separator according to your
operating system i.e. it will be '/' in Linux, Unix, it will be '\\' in Windows and ':' in
Mac OS. Using os.sep instead of these characters directly will make our program portable
and work across these systems.
The time.strftime() function takes a specification such as the one we have used in the
above program. The %Y specification will be replaced by the year without the century. The
%m specification will be replaced by the month as a decimal number between 01 and 12 and
so on. The complete list of such specifications can be found in the Python Reference Manual
(http:// docs.python.org/dev/3. 0/ library/time.html#time.strftime).
We create the name of the target zip file using the addition operator which concatenates
the strings i.e. it joins the two strings together and returns a new one. Then, we create a
string zip_command which contains the command that we are going to execute. You can
check if this command works by running it on the shell (Linux terminal or DOS prompt).
The zip command that we are using has some options and parameters passed. The -q
option is used to indicate that the zip command should work quietly. The -r option
specifies that the zip command should work recursively for directories i.e. it should include
all the subdirectories and files. The two options are combined and specified in a shortcut as
-qr. The options are followed by the name of the zip archive to create followed by the list of
files and directories to backup. We convert the source list into a string using the join
method of strings which we have already seen how to use.
Then, we finally run the command using the os.system function which runs the command
as if it was run from the system i.e. in the shell - it returns 0 if the command was
successfully, else it returns an error number.
Depending on the outcome of the command, we print the appropriate message that the
backup has failed or succeeded.
That's it, we have created a script to take a backup of our important files!
Note to Windows Users
Instead of double backslash escape sequences, you can also use raw strings. For
example, use 'C:\\Documents' or r'C:\Documents'. However, do not use
'C:\Documents' since you end up using an unknown escape sequence \D.
Now that we have a working backup script, we can use it whenever we want to take a
backup of the files. Linux/Unix users are advised to use the executable method as discussed
earlier so that they can run the backup script anytime anywhere. This is called the
operation phase or the deployment phase of the software.
The above program works properly, but (usually) first programs do not work exactly as you
expect. For example, there might be problems if you have not designed the program
properly or if you have made a mistake in typing the code, etc. Appropriately, you will have
to go back to the design phase or you will have to debug your program.
63
Second Version
The first version of our script works. However, we can make some refinements to it so that
it can work better on a daily basis. This is called the maintenance phase of the software.
One of the refinements I felt was useful is a better file-naming mechanism - using the time
as the name of the file within a directory with the current date as a directory within the
main backup directory. First advantage is that your backups are stored in a hierarchical
manner and therefore it is much easier to manage. Second advantage is that the length of
the filenames are much shorter. Third advantage is that separate directories will help you
to easily check if you have taken a backup for each day since the directory would be
created only if you have taken a backup for that day.
#!/usr/bin/python
import os
import time
spaces in it.
using
# 4. The current day is the name of the subdirectory in the main
directory
today = target_dir + os.sep + time.strftime('%Y%m%d')
# The current time is the name of the zip archive
now = time.strftime('%H%M%S')
# Create the subdirectory if it isn't already there
if not os.path.exists(today):
os.mkdir(today) # make directory
print('Successfully created directory', today)
# The name of the zip file
target = today + os.sep + now + '.zip'
# Run the backup
64
else:
Output:
Successfully created directory E:\Backup\20080702
Successful backup to E:\Backup\20080702\202311.zip
How It Works:
Most of the program remains the same. The changes is that we check if there is a directory
with the current day as name inside the main backup directory using the os.path.exists
function. If it doesn't exist, we create it using the os.mkdir function.
Third Version
The second version works fine when I do many backups, but when there are lots of
backups, I am finding it hard to differentiate what the backups were for! For example, I
might have made some major changes to a program or presentation, then I want to
associate what those changes are with the name of the zip archive. This can be easily
achieved by attaching a user-supplied comment to the name of the zip archive.
Note
The following program does not work, so do not be alarmed, please follow along
because there's a lesson in here.
#!/usr/bin/python
import os
import time
spaces in it.
using
directory
65
# Take a comment from the user to create the name of the zip file
comment = input('Enter a comment --> ')
if len(comment) == 0: # check if a comment was entered
else:
target = today + os.sep + now + '_' +
comment.replace(' ', '_') + '.zip'
# Run the backup
else:
Output:
File "backup_ver3.py", line 25
target = today + os.sep + now + '_' +
^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
How This (does not) Work:
This program does not work! Python says there is a syntax error which means that the
script does not satisfy the structure that Python expects to see. When we observe the error
given by Python, it also tells us the place where it detected the error as well. So we start
debugging our program from that line.
On careful observation, we see that the single logical line has been split into two physical
lines but we have not specified that these two physical lines belong together. Basically,
Python has found the addition operator (+) without any operand in that logical line and
hence it doesn't know how to continue. Remember that we can specify that the logical line
continues in the next physical line by the use of a backslash at the end of the physical line.
So, we make this correction to our program. This correction of the program when we find
errors is called bug fixing.
66
Fourth Version
#!/usr/bin/python
import os
import time
spaces in it.
using
directory
# Take a comment from the user to create the name of the zip file
comment = input('Enter a comment --> ')
if len(comment) == 0: # check if a comment was entered
else:
target = today + os.sep + now + '_' + \
comment.replace(' ', '_') + '.zip'
# Run the backup
else:
Output:
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Enter a comment --> added new examples
Successful backup to
E:\Backup\20080702\202836_added_new_examples.zip
Enter a comment -->
How It Works:
This program now works! Let us go through the actual enhancements that we had made in
version 3. We take in the user's comments using the input function and then check if the
user actually entered something by finding out the length of the input using the len
function. If the user has just pressed enter without entering anything (maybe it was just a
routine backup or no special changes were made), then we proceed as we have done
before.
However, if a comment was supplied, then this is attached to the name of the zip archive
just before the .zip extension. Notice that we are replacing spaces in the comment with
underscores - this is because managing filenames without spaces are much easier.
More Refinements
The fourth version is a satisfactorily working script for most users, but there is always room
for improvement. For example, you can include a verbosity level for the program where you
can specify a -v option to make your program become more talkative.
Another possible enhancement would be to allow extra files and directories to be passed to
the script at the command line. We can get these names from the sys.argv list and we can
add them to our source list using the extend method provided by the list class.
The most important refinement would be to not use the os.system way of creating archives
and instead using the zipfile or tarfile built-in module to create these archives. They
are part of the standard library and available already for you to use without external
dependencies on the zip program to be available on your computer.
However, I have been using the os.system way of creating a backup in the above examples
purely for pedagogical purposes, so that the example is simple enough to be understood by
everybody but real enough to be useful.
Can you try writing the fifth version that uses the zipfile (http:/ / docs. python. org/ dev/ 3.
0/ library/zipfile.html) module instead of the os.system call?
68
The Software Development Process

We have now gone through the various phases in the process of writing a software. These
phases can be summarised as follows:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
What (Analysis)
How (Design)
Do It (Implementation)
Test (Testing and Debugging)
Use (Operation or Deployment)
Maintain (Refinement)
A recommended way of writing programs is the procedure we have followed in creating the
backup script: Do the analysis and design. Start implementing with a simple version. Test
and debug it. Use it to ensure that it works as expected. Now, add any features that you
want and continue to repeat the Do It-Test-Use cycle as many times as required.
Remember, Software is grown, not built.
Summary
We have seen how to create our own Python programs/scripts and the various stages
involved in writing such programs. You may find it useful to create your own program just
like we did in this chapter so that you become comfortable with Python as well as
problem-solving.
Next, we will discuss object-oriented programming.
69
Python en:Object Oriented Programming
Python en:Object Oriented

Programming
Introduction
In all the programs we wrote till now, we have designed our program around functions i.e.
blocks of statements which manipulate data. This is called the procedure-oriented way of
programming. There is another way of organizing your program which is to combine data
and functionality and wrap it inside something called an object. This is called the object
oriented programming paradigm. Most of the time you can use procedural programming,
but when writing large programs or have a problem that is better suited to this method, you
can use object oriented programming techniques.
Classes and objects are the two main aspects of object oriented programming. A class
creates a new type where objects are instances of the class. An analogy is that you can
have variables of type int which translates to saying that variables that store integers are
variables which are instances (objects) of the int class.
Note for Static Language Programmers
Note that even integers are treated as objects (of the int class). This is unlike C++
and Java (before version 1.5) where integers are primitive native types. See
help(int) for more details on the class.
C# and Java 1.5 programmers will find this similar to the boxing and unboxing
concept.
Objects can store data using ordinary variables that belong to the object. Variables that
belong to an object or class are referred to as fields. Objects can also have functionality by
using functions that belong to a class. Such functions are called methods of the class. This
terminology is important because it helps us to differentiate between functions and
variables which are independent and those which belong to a class or object. Collectively,
the fields and methods can be referred to as the attributes of that class.
Fields are of two types - they can belong to each instance/object of the class or they can
belong to the class itself. They are called instance variables and class variables
respectively.
A class is created using the class keyword. The fields and methods of the class are listed
in an indented block.
The self
Class methods have only one specific difference from ordinary functions - they must have
an extra first name that has to be added to the beginning of the parameter list, but you do
not give a value for this parameter when you call the method, Python will provide it. This
particular variable refers to the object itself, and by convention, it is given the name self.
Although, you can give any name for this parameter, it is strongly recommended that you
use the name self - any other name is definitely frowned upon. There are many
advantages to using a standard name - any reader of your program will immediately
recognize it and even specialized IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) can help
you if you use self.
70
Note for C++/Java/C# Programmers
The self in Python is equivalent to the this pointer in C++ and the this reference
in Java and C#.
You must be wondering how Python gives the value for self and why you don't need to
give a value for it. An example will make this clear. Say you have a class called MyClass
and an instance of this class called myobject. When you call a method of this object as
myobject.method(arg1, arg2), this is automatically converted by Python into
MyClass.method(myobject, arg1, arg2) - this is all the special self is about.
This also means that if you have a method which takes no arguments, then you still have to
have one argument - the self.
Classes
The simplest class possible is shown in the following example.
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: simplestclass.py
class Person:
pass # An empty block
p = Person()
print(p)
Output:
$ python simplestclass.py
<__main__.Person object at 0x019F85F0>
How It Works:
We create a new class using the class statement and the name of the class. This is
followed by an indented block of statements which form the body of the class. In this case,
we have an empty block which is indicated using the pass statement.
Next, we create an object/instance of this class using the name of the class followed by a
pair of parentheses. (We will learn more about instantiation in the next section). For our
verification, we confirm the type of the variable by simply printing it. It tells us that we
have an instance of the Person class in the __main__ module.
Notice that the address of the computer memory where your object is stored is also printed.
The address will have a different value on your computer since Python can store the object
wherever it finds space.
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Object Methods
We have already discussed that classes/objects can have methods just like functions except
that we have an extra self variable. We will now see an example.
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: method.py
class Person:
def sayHi(self):
print('Hello, how are you?')
p = Person()
p.sayHi()
# This short example can also be written as Person().sayHi()
Output:
$ python method.py
Hello, how are you?
How It Works:
Here we see the self in action. Notice that the sayHi method takes no parameters but
still has the self in the function definition.
The __init__method
There are many method names which have special significance in Python classes. We will
see the significance of the __init__ method now.
The __init__ method is run as soon as an object of a class is instantiated. The method is
useful to do any initialization you want to do with your object. Notice the double
underscores both at the beginning and at the end of the name.
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: class_init.py
class Person:
def __init__(self, name):
self.name = name
def sayHi(self):
print('Hello, my name is', self.name)
p = Person('Swaroop')
p.sayHi()
# This short example can also be written as Person('Swaroop').sayHi()
Output:
72
$ python class_init.py
Hello, my name is Swaroop
How It Works:
Here, we define the __init__ method as taking a parameter name (along with the usual
self). Here, we just create a new field also called name. Notice these are two different
variables even though they are both called 'name'. The dotted notation allows us to
differentiate between them.
Most importantly, notice that we do not explicitly call the __init__ method but pass the
arguments in the parentheses following the class name when creating a new instance of the
class. This is the special significance of this method.
Now, we are able to use the self.name field in our methods which is demonstrated in the
sayHi method.
Class And Object Variables

We have already discussed the functionality part of classes and objects (i.e. methods), now
let us learn about the data part. The data part, i.e. fields, are nothing but ordinary variables
that are bound to the namespaces of the classes and objects. This means that these names
are valid within the context of these classes and objects only. That's why they are called
name spaces.
There are two types of fields - class variables and object variables which are classified
depending on whether the class or the object owns the variables respectively.
Class variables are shared - they can be accessed by all instances of that class. There is
only one copy of the class variable and when any one object makes a change to a class
variable, that change will be seen by all the other instances.
Object variables are owned by each individual object/instance of the class. In this case,
each object has its own copy of the field i.e. they are not shared and are not related in any
way to the field by the same name in a different instance. An example will make this easy to
understand:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: objvar.py
class Robot:
'''Represents a robot, with a name.'''
# A class variable, counting the number of robots
population = 0
def __init__(self, name):
'''Initializes the data.'''
self.name = name
print('(Initializing {0})'.format(self.name))
# When this person is created, the robot
# adds to the population
Robot.population += 1
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def __del__(self):
'''I am dying.'''
print('{0} is being destroyed!'.format(self.name))
Robot.population -= 1
if Robot.population == 0:
print('{0} was the last one.'.format(self.name))
else:
print('There are still {0:d} robots
working.'.format(Robot.population))
def sayHi(self):
'''Greeting by the robot.
Yeah, they can do that.'''
print('Greetings, my masters call me {0}.'.format(self.name))
def howMany():
'''Prints the current population.'''
print('We have {0:d} robots.'.format(Robot.population))
howMany = staticmethod(howMany)
droid1 = Robot('R2-D2')
droid1.sayHi()
Robot.howMany()
droid2 = Robot('C-3PO')
droid2.sayHi()
Robot.howMany()
print("\nRobots can do some work here.\n")
print("Robots have finished their work. So let's destroy them.")
del droid1
del droid2
Robot.howMany()
Output:
(Initializing R2-D2)
Greetings, my masters call me R2-D2.
We have 1 robots.
(Initializing C-3PO)
Greetings, my masters call me C-3PO.
We have 2 robots.
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Robots can do some work here.

Robots have finished their work. So let's destroy them.
R2-D2 is being destroyed!
There are still 1 robots working.
C-3PO is being destroyed!
C-3PO was the last one.
We have 0 robots.
How It Works:
This is a long example but helps demonstrate the nature of class and object variables. Here,
population belongs to the Robot class and hence is a class variable. The name variable
belongs to the object (it is assigned using self) and hence is an object variable.
Thus, we refer to the population class variable as Robot.population and not as
self.population. We refer to the object variable name using self.name notation in the
methods of that object. Remember this simple difference between class and object
variables. Also note that an object variable with the same name as a class variable will hide
the class variable!
The howMany is actually a method that belongs to the class and not to the object. This
means we can define it as either a classmethod or a staticmethod depending on whether
we need to know which class we are part of. Since we don't need such information, we will
go for staticmethod.
We could have also achieved the same using decorators (http:/ / www. ibm. com/
developerworks/linux/library/l-cpdecor.html):
@staticmethod
def howMany():
'''Prints the current population.'''
print('We have {0:d} robots.'.format(Robot.population))
Decorators can be imagined to be a shortcut to calling an explicit statement, as we have
seen in this example.
Observe that the __init__ method is used to initialize the Robot instance with a name. In
this method, we increase the population count by 1 since we have one more robot being
added. Also observe that the values of self.name is specific to each object which indicates
the nature of object variables.
Remember, that you must refer to the variables and methods of the same object using the
self only. This is called an attribute reference.
In this program, we also see the use of docstrings for classes as well as methods. We can
access the class docstring at runtime using Robot.__doc__ and the method docstring as
Robot.sayHi.__doc__
Just like the __init__ method, there is another special method __del__ which is called
when an object is going to die i.e. it is no longer being used and is being returned to the
computer system for reusing that piece of memory. In this method, we simply decrease the
Robot.population count by 1.
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The __del__ method is run when the object is no longer in use and there is no guarantee
when that method will be run. If you want to explicitly see it in action, we have to use the
del statement which is what we have done here.
Note for C++/Java/C# Programmers
All class members (including the data members) are public and all the methods are
virtual in Python.
One exception: If you use data members with names using the double underscore
prefix such as __privatevar, Python uses name-mangling to effectively make it a
private variable.
Thus, the convention followed is that any variable that is to be used only within the
class or object should begin with an underscore and all other names are public and can
be used by other classes/objects. Remember that this is only a convention and is not
enforced by Python (except for the double underscore prefix).
Inheritance
One of the major benefits of object oriented programming is reuse of code and one of the
ways this is achieved is through the inheritance mechanism. Inheritance can be best
imagined as implementing a type and subtype relationship between classes.
Suppose you want to write a program which has to keep track of the teachers and students
in a college. They have some common characteristics such as name, age and address. They
also have specific characteristics such as salary, courses and leaves for teachers and, marks
and fees for students.
You can create two independent classes for each type and process them but adding a new
common characteristic would mean adding to both of these independent classes. This
quickly becomes unwieldy.
A better way would be to create a common class called SchoolMember and then have the
teacher and student classes inherit from this class i.e. they will become sub-types of this
type (class) and then we can add specific characteristics to these sub-types.
There are many advantages to this approach. If we add/change any functionality in
SchoolMember, this is automatically reflected in the subtypes as well. For example, you can
add a new ID card field for both teachers and students by simply adding it to the
SchoolMember class. However, changes in the subtypes do not affect other subtypes.
Another advantage is that if you can refer to a teacher or student object as a SchoolMember
object which could be useful in some situations such as counting of the number of school
members. This is called polymorphism where a sub-type can be substituted in any
situation where a parent type is expected i.e. the object can be treated as an instance of the
parent class.
Also observe that we reuse the code of the parent class and we do not need to repeat it in
the different classes as we would have had to in case we had used independent classes.
The SchoolMember class in this situation is known as the base class or the superclass. The
Teacher and Student classes are called the derived classes or subclasses.
We will now see this example as a program.
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: inherit.py
76
class SchoolMember:
'''Represents any school member.'''
def __init__(self, name, age):
self.name = name
self.age = age
print('(Initialized SchoolMember: {0})'.format(self.name))
def tell(self):
'''Tell my details.'''
print('Name:"{0}" Age:"{1}"'.format(self.name, self.age), end="
")
class Teacher(SchoolMember):
'''Represents a teacher.'''
def __init__(self, name, age, salary):
SchoolMember.__init__(self, name, age)
self.salary = salary
print('(Initialized Teacher: {0})'.format(self.name))
def tell(self):
SchoolMember.tell(self)
print('Salary: "{0:d}"'.format(self.salary))
class Student(SchoolMember):
'''Represents a student.'''
def __init__(self, name, age, marks):
SchoolMember.__init__(self, name, age)
self.marks = marks
print('(Initialized Student: {0})'.format(self.name))
def tell(self):
SchoolMember.tell(self)
print('Marks: "{0:d}"'.format(self.marks))
t = Teacher('Mrs. Shrividya', 40, 30000)
s = Student('Swaroop', 25, 75)
print() # prints a blank line
members = [t, s]
for member in members:
member.tell() # works for both Teachers and Students
Output:
$ python inherit.py
(Initialized SchoolMember: Mrs. Shrividya)
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(Initialized Teacher: Mrs. Shrividya)
(Initialized SchoolMember: Swaroop)
(Initialized Student: Swaroop)
Name:"Mrs. Shrividya" Age:"40" Salary: "30000"
Name:"Swaroop" Age:"25" Marks: "75"
How It Works:
To use inheritance, we specify the base class names in a tuple following the class name in
the class definition. Next, we observe that the __init__ method of the base class is
explicitly called using the self variable so that we can initialize the base class part of the
object. This is very important to remember - Python does not automatically call the
constructor of the base class, you have to explicitly call it yourself.
We also observe that we can call methods of the base class by prefixing the class name to
the method call and then pass in the self variable along with any arguments.
Notice that we can treat instances of Teacher or Student as just instances of the
SchoolMember when we use the tell method of the SchoolMember class.
Also, observe that the tell method of the subtype is called and not the tell method of the
SchoolMember class. One way to understand this is that Python always starts looking for
methods in the actual type, which in this case it does. If it could not find the method, it
starts looking at the methods belonging to its base classes one by one in the order they are
specified in the tuple in the class definition.
A note on terminology - if more than one class is listed in the inheritance tuple, then it is
called multiple inheritance.
Summary
We have now explored the various aspects of classes and objects as well as the various
terminologies associated with it. We have also seen the benefits and pitfalls of
object-oriented programming. Python is highly object-oriented and understanding these
concepts carefully will help you a lot in the long run.
Next, we will learn how to deal with input/output and how to access files in Python.
78
Python en:Input Output

Introduction
There will be situations where your program has to interact with the user. For example, you
would want to take input from the user and then print some results back. We can achieve
this using the input() and print() functions respectively.
For output, we can also use the various methods of the str (string) class. For example, you
can use the rjust method to get a string which is right justified to a specified width. See
help(str) for more details.
Another common type of input/output is dealing with files. The ability to create, read and
write files is essential to many programs and we will explore this aspect in this chapter.
Input from user

#!/usr/bin/python
# user_input.py
def reverse(text):
return text[::-1]
def is_palindrome(text):
return text == reverse(text)
something = input('Enter text: ')
if (is_palindrome(something)):
print("Yes, it is a palindrome")
else:
print("No, it is not a palindrome")
Output:
$ python user_input.py
Enter text: sir
No, it is not a palindrome
Enter text: madam
Yes, it is a palindrome
Enter text: racecar
Yes, it is a palindrome
How It Works:
We use the slicing feature to reverse the text. We've already seen how we can make slices
from sequences using the seq[a:b] code starting from position a to position b. We can
also provide a third argument that determines the step by which the slicing is done. The
79
default step is 1 because of which it returns a continuous part of the text. Giving a negative
step, i.e., -1 will return the text in reverse.
The input() function takes a string as argument and displays it to the user. Then it waits
for the user to type something and press the return key. Once the user has entered, the
input() function will then return that text.
We take that text and reverse it. If the original text and reversed text are equal, then the
text is a palindrome (http:// en.wiktionary.org/wiki/palindrome).
Homework exercise:
Checking whether a text is a palindrome should also ignore punctuation, spaces and case.
For example, "Rise to vote, sir." is also a palindrome but our current program doesn't say it
is. Can you improve the above program to recognize this palindrome?
Files
You can open and use files for reading or writing by creating an object of the file class
and using its read, readline or write methods appropriately to read from or write to the
file. The ability to read or write to the file depends on the mode you have specified for the
file opening. Then finally, when you are finished with the file, you call the close method to
tell Python that we are done using the file.
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: using_file.py
poem = '''\
Programming is fun
use Python!
'''
f = open('poem.txt', 'w') # open for 'w'riting
f.write(poem) # write text to file
f.close() # close the file
f = open('poem.txt') # if no mode is specified, 'r'ead mode is assumed
by default
while True:
line = f.readline()
if len(line) == 0: # Zero length indicates EOF
break
print(line, end='')
f.close() # close the file
Output:
$ python using_file.py
Programming is fun
80
use Python!
How It Works:
First, open a file by using the built-in open function and specifying the name of the file and
the mode in which we want to open the file. The mode can be a read mode ('r'), write
mode ('w') or append mode ('a'). We can also by dealing with a text file ('t') or a binary
file ('b'). There are actually many more modes available and help(open) will give you
more details about them. By default, open() considers the file to be a 't'ext file and opens it
in 'r'ead mode.
In our example, we first open the file in write text mode and use the write method of the
file object to write to the file and then we finally close the file.
Next, we open the same file again for reading. We don't need to specify a mode because
'read text file' is the default mode. We read in each line of the file using the readline
method in a loop. This method returns a complete line including the newline character at
the end of the line. When an empty string is returned, it means that we have reached the
end of the file and we 'break' out of the loop.
By deafult, the print() function prints the text as well as an automatic newline to the
screen. We are suppressing the newline by specifying end='' because the line that is read
from the file already ends with a newline character. Then, we finally close the file.
Now, check the contents of the poem.txt file to confirm that the program has indeed
written and read from that file.
Pickle
Python provides a standard module called pickle using which you can store any Python
object in a file and then get it back later. This is called storing the object persistently.
Example:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: pickling.py
import pickle
# the name of the file where we will store the object
shoplistfile = 'shoplist.data'
# the list of things to buy
shoplist = ['apple', 'mango', 'carrot']
# Write to the file
f = open(shoplistfile, 'wb')
pickle.dump(shoplist, f) # dump the object to a file
f.close()
del shoplist # destroy the shoplist variable
# Read back from the storage
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f = open(shoplistfile, 'rb')
storedlist = pickle.load(f) # load the object from the file
print(storedlist)
Output:
$ python pickling.py
['apple', 'mango', 'carrot']
How It Works:
To store an object in a file, we have to first open the file in 'w'rite 'b'inary mode and then
call the dump function of the pickle module. This process is called pickling.
Next, we retrieve the object using the load function of the pickle module which returns
the object. This process is called unpickling.
Summary
We have discussed various types of input/output and also file handling and using the pickle
module.
Next, we will explore the concept of exceptions.
Python en:Exceptions
Introduction
Exceptions occur when certain exceptional situations occur in your program. For example,
what if you are going to read a file and the file does not exist? Or what if you accidentally
deleted it when the program was running? Such situations are handled using exceptions.
Similarly, what if your program had some invalid statements? This is handled by Python
which raises its hands and tells you there is an error.
Errors
Consider a simple print function call. What if we misspelt print as Print? Note the
capitalization. In this case, Python raises a syntax error.
>>> Print('Hello World')
File "<pyshell#0>", line 1, in <module>
Print('Hello World')
NameError: name 'Print' is not defined
>>> print('Hello World')
Hello World
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Observe that a NameError is raised and also the location where the error was detected is
printed. This is what an error handler for this error does.
Exceptions
We will try to read input from the user. Press ctrl-d and see what happens.
>>> s = input('Enter something --> ')
Enter something -->
File "<pyshell#2>", line 1, in <module>
s = input('Enter something --> ')
EOFError: EOF when reading a line
Python raises an error called EOFError which basically means it found an end of file symbol
(which is represented by ctrl-d) when it did not expect to see it.
Handling Exceptions
We can handle exceptions using the try..except statement. We basically put our usual
statements within the try-block and put all our error handlers in the except-block.
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: try_except.py
try:
text = input('Enter something --> ')
except EOFError:
print('Why did you do an EOF on me?')
except KeyboardInterrupt:
print('You cancelled the operation.')
else:
print('You entered {0}'.format(text))
Output:
$ python try_except.py
Enter something -->
# Press ctrl-d
Why did you do an EOF on me?
Enter something -->
# Press ctrl-c
You cancelled the operation.
Enter something --> no exceptions
You entered no exceptions
How It Works:
We put all the statements that might raise exceptions/errors inside the try block and then
put handlers for the appropriate errors/exceptions in the except clause/block. The except
83
clause can handle a single specified error or exception, or a parenthesized list of
errors/exceptions. If no names of errors or exceptions are supplied, it will handle all errors
and exceptions.
Note that there has to be at least one except clause associated with every try clause.
Otherwise, what's the point of having a try block?
If any error or exception is not handled, then the default Python handler is called which just
stops the execution of the program and prints an error message. We have already seen this
in action above.
You can also have an else clause associated with a try..except block. The else clause is
executed if no exception occurs.
In the next example, we will also see how to get the exception object so that we can retrieve
additional information.
Raising Exceptions
You can raise exceptions using the raise statement by providing the name of the
error/exception and the exception object that is to be thrown.
The error or exception that you can arise should be class which directly or indirectly must
be a derived class of the Exception class.
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: raising.py
class ShortInputException(Exception):
'''A user-defined exception class.'''
def __init__(self, length, atleast):
Exception.__init__(self)
self.length = length
self.atleast = atleast
try:
text = input('Enter something --> ')
if len(text) < 3:
raise ShortInputException(len(text), 3)
# Other work can continue as usual here
except EOFError:
print('Why did you do an EOF on me?')
except ShortInputException as ex:
print('ShortInputException: The input was {0} long, expected at
least {1}'\
.format(ex.length, ex.atleast))
else:
print('No exception was raised.')
Output:
$ python raising.py
Enter something --> a
84
ShortInputException: The input was 1 long, expected at least 3
$ python raising.py
Enter something --> abc
No exception was raised.
How It Works:
Here, we are creating our own exception type. This new exception type is called
ShortInputException. It has two fields - length which is the length of the given input, and
atleast which is the minimum length that the program was expecting.
In the except clause, we mention the class of error which will be stored as the variable
name to hold the corresponding error/exception object. This is analogous to parameters and
arguments in a function call. Within this particular except clause, we use the length and
atleast fields of the exception object to print an appropriate message to the user.
Try ..Finally
Suppose you are reading a file in your program. How do you ensure that the file object is
closed properly whether or not an exception was raised? This can be done using the
finally block. Note that you can use an except clause along with a finally block for the
same corresponding try block. You will have to embed one within another if you want to
use both.
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: finally.py
import time
try:
f = open('poem.txt')
while True: # our usual file-reading idiom
line = f.readline()
if len(line) == 0:
break
print(line, end='')
time.sleep(2) # To make sure it runs for a while
except KeyboardInterrupt:
print('!! You cancelled the reading from the file.')
finally:
f.close()
print('(Cleaning up: Closed the file)')
Output:
$ python finally.py
Programming is fun
!! You cancelled the reading from the file.
85
(Cleaning up: Closed the file)
How It Works:
We do the usual file-reading stuff, but we have arbitrarily introduced sleeping for 2 seconds
after printing each line using the time.sleep function so that the program runs slowly
(Python is very fast by nature). When the program is still running, press ctrl-c to
interrupt/cancel the program.
Observe that the KeyboardInterrupt exception is thrown and the program quits. However,
before the program exits, the finally clause is executed and the file object is always closed.
The with statement

Acquiring a resource in the try block and subsequently releasing the resource in the
finally block is a common pattern. Hence, there is also a with statement that enables this
to be done in a clean manner:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: using_with.py
with open("poem.txt") as f:
for line in f:
print(line, end='')
How It Works:
The output should be same as the previous example. The difference here is that we are
using the open function with the with statement - we leave the closing of the file to be
done automatically by with open.
What happens behind the scenes is that there is a protocol used by the with statement. It
fetches the object returned by the open statement, let's call it "thefile" in this case.
It always calls the thefile.__enter__ function before starting the block of code under it
and always calls thefile.__exit__ after finishing the block of code.
So the code that we would have written in a finally block is should be taken care of
automatically by the __exit__ method. This is what helps us to avoid having to use explicit
try..finally statements repeatedly.
More discussion on this topic is beyond scope of this book, so please refer PEP 343 (http:/ /
www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0343/) for comprehensive explanation.
Summary
We have discussed the usage of the try..except and try..finally statements. We have
seen how to create our own exception types and how to raise exceptions as well.
Next, we will explore the Python Standard Library.
86
Python en:Standard Library

Introduction
The Python Standard Library contains a huge number of useful modules and is part of every
standard Python installation. It is important to become familiar with the Python Standard
Library since many problems can be solved quickly if you are familiar with the range of
things that these libraries can do.
We will explore some of the commonly used modules in this library. You can find complete
details for all of the modules in the Python Standard Library in the 'Library Reference'
section (http:/ / docs. python. org/ dev/ 3. 0/ library/ ) of the documentation that comes with
your Python installation.
Let us explore a few useful modules.
Note
If you find the topics in this chapter too advanced, you may skip this chapter. However,
I highly recommend coming back to this chapter when you are more comfortable with
programming using Python.
sys module
The sys module contains system-specific functionality. We have already seen that the
sys.argv list contains the command-line arguments.
Suppose we want to check the version of the Python command being used so that, say, we
want to ensure that we are using at least version 3. The sys module gives us such
functionality.
>>> import sys
>>> sys.version_info
(3, 0, 0, 'beta', 2)
>>> sys.version_info[0] >= 3
True
How It Works:
The sys module has a version_info tuple that gives us the version information. The first
entry is the major version. We can check this to, for example, ensure the program runs only
under Python 3.0:
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: versioncheck.py
import sys, warnings
if sys.version_info[0] < 3:
warnings.warn("Need Python 3.0 for this program to run",
RuntimeWarning)
else:
print('Proceed as normal')
Output:
87
$ python2.5 versioncheck.py
versioncheck.py:6: RuntimeWarning: Need Python 3.0 for this program
to run
RuntimeWarning)
$ python3 versioncheck.py
Proceed as normal
How It Works:
We use another module from the standard library called warnings that is used to display
warnings to the end-user. If the Python version number is not at least 3, we display a
corresponding warning.
logging module
What if you wanted to have some debugging messages or important messages to be stored
somewhere so that you can check whether your program has been running as you would
expect it? How do you "store somewhere" these messages? This can be achieved using the
logging module.
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: use_logging.py
import os, platform, logging
if platform.platform().startswith('Windows'):
logging_file = os.path.join(os.getenv('HOMEDRIVE'),
os.getenv('HOMEPATH'), 'test.log')
else:
logging_file = os.path.join(os.getenv('HOME'), 'test.log')
logging.basicConfig(
level=logging.DEBUG,
format='%(asctime)s : %(levelname)s : %(message)s',
filename = logging_file,
filemode = 'w',
)
logging.debug("Start of the program")
logging.info("Doing something")
logging.warning("Dying now")
Output:
$python use_logging.py
Logging to C:\Users\swaroop\test.log
If we check the contents of test.log, it will look something like this:
2008-09-03 13:18:16,233 : DEBUG : Start of the program
2008-09-03 13:18:16,233 : INFO : Doing something
2008-09-03 13:18:16,233 : WARNING : Dying now
88
How It Works:
We use three modules from the standard library - the os module for interacting with the
operating system, the platform module for information about the platform i.e. the
operating system and the logging module to log information.
First, we check which operating system we are using by checking the string returned by
platform.platform() (for more information, see import platform; help(platform)). If it
is Windows, we figure out the home drive, the home folder and the filename where we want
to store the information. Putting these three parts together, we get the full location of the
file. For other platforms, we need to know just the home folder of the user and we get the
full location of the file.
We use the os.path.join() function to put these three parts of the location together. The
reason to use a special function rather than just adding the strings together is because this
function will ensure the full location matches the format expected by the operating system.
We configure the logging module to write all the messages in a particular format to the
file we have specified.
Finally, we can put messages that are either meant for debugging, information, warning or
even critical messages. Once the program has run, we can check this file and we will know
what happened in the program, even though no information was displayed to the user
running the program.
urllib and json modules

How much fun would it be if we could write our own program that will get search results
from the web? Let us explore that now.
This can be achieved using a few modules. First is the urllib module that we can use to
fetch any webpage from the internet. We will make use of Yahoo! Search to get the search
results and luckily they can give us the results in a format called JSON which is easy for us
to parse because of the built-in json module in the standard library.
TODO
This program doesn't work yet which seems to be a bug in Python 3.0 beta 2 (http:/ /
bugs.python.org/issue3763).
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: yahoo_search.py
import sys
if sys.version_info[0] != 3:
sys.exit('This program needs Python 3.0')
import json
import urllib, urllib.parse, urllib.request, urllib.response
# Get your own APP ID at http://developer.yahoo.com/wsregapp/
YAHOO_APP_ID =
'jl22psvV34HELWhdfUJbfDQzlJ2B57KFS_qs4I8D0Wz5U5_yCI1Awv8.lBSfPhwr'
SEARCH_BASE =
'http://search.yahooapis.com/WebSearchService/V1/webSearch'
89
class YahooSearchError(Exception):
pass
# Taken from http://developer.yahoo.com/python/python-json.html
def search(query, results=20, start=1, **kwargs):
kwargs.update({
'appid': YAHOO_APP_ID,
'query': query,
'results': results,
'start': start,
'output': 'json'
})
url = SEARCH_BASE + '?' + urllib.parse.urlencode(kwargs)
result = json.load(urllib.request.urlopen(url))
if 'Error' in result:
raise YahooSearchError(result['Error'])
return result['ResultSet']
query = input('What do you want to search for? ')
for result in search(query)['Result']:
print("{0} : {1}".format(result['Title'], result['Url']))
Output:
TODO
How It Works:
We can get the search results from a particular website by giving the text we are searching
for in a particular format. We have to specify many options which we combine using
key1=value1&key2=value2 format which is handled by the urllib.parse.urlencode()
function.
So for example, open this link in your web browser (http:/ / search. yahooapis. com/
WebSearchService/
V1/
webSearch?query=byte+
of+
python&
appid=jl22psvV34HELWhdfUJbfDQzlJ2B57KFS_qs4I8D0Wz5U5_yCI1Awv8.
lBSfPhwr&
results=20& start=1& output=json) and you will see 20 results, starting from the first
result, for the words "byte of python", and we are asking for the output in JSON format.
We make a connection to this URL using the urllib.request.urlopen() function and pass
that file handle to json.load() which will read the content and simultaneously convert it
to a Python object. We then loop through these results and display it to the end-user.
90
Module of the Week Series

There is much more to be explored in the standard library such as debugging (http:/ / docs.
python. org/ dev/ library/ pdb. html), handling command line options (http:/ / docs. python.
org/ dev/ 3. 0/ library/ getopt. html), regular expressions (http:/ / www. diveintopython. org/
regular_expressions/index.html) and so on.
The best way to further explore the standard library is to read Doug Hellmann's excellent
Python Module of the Week (http:// www.doughellmann.com/projects/PyMOTW/) series.
Summary
We have explored some of the functionality of many modules in the Python Standard
Library. It is highly recommended to browse through the Python Standard Library
documentation (http:/ / docs. python. org/ dev/ 3. 0/ library/ ) to get an idea of all the
modules that are available.
Next, we will cover various aspects of Python that will make our tour of Python more
complete.
Python en:More
Introduction
So far we have covered majority of the various aspects of Python that you will use. In this
chapter, we will cover some more aspects that will make our knowledge of Python more
well-rounded.
Passing tuples around

Ever wished you could return two different values from a function? You can. All you have to
do is use a tuple.
>>> def get_error_details():
...
return (2, 'second error details')
...
>>> errnum, errstr = get_error_details()
>>> errnum
2
>>> errstr
'second error details'
Notice that the usage of a, b = <some expression> interprets the result of the expression
as a tuple with two values.
If you want to interpret the results as (a, <everything else>), then you just need to star
it just like you would in function parameters:
91
Python en:More
>>> a, *b = [1, 2, 3, 4]
>>> a
1
>>> b
[2, 3, 4]
This also means the fastest way to swap two variables in Python is:
>>> a = 5; b = 8
>>> a, b = b, a
>>> a, b
(8, 5)
Special Methods
There are certain methods such as the __init__ and __del__ methods which have special
significance in classes.
Special methods are used to mimic certain behaviors of built-in types. For example, if you
want to use the x[key] indexing operation for your class (just like you use it for lists and
tuples), then all you have to do is implement the __getitem__() method and your job is
done. If you think about it, this is what Python does for the list class itself!
Some useful special methods are listed in the following table. If you want to know about all
the special methods, see the manual (http:/ / docs. python. org/ dev/ 3. 0/ reference/
datamodel.html#special-method-names).
Name
Explanation
__init__(self, ...)
This method is called just before the newly created object is returned for usage.
__del__(self)
Called just before the object is destroyed
__str__(self)
Called when we use the print function or when str() is used.
__lt__(self, other)
Called when the less than operator (<) is used. Similarly, there are special
methods for all the operators (+, >, etc.)
__getitem__(self, key)
Called when x[key] indexing operation is used.
__len__(self)
Called when the built-in len() function is used for the sequence object.
Single Statement Blocks

We have seen that each block of statements is set apart from the rest by its own indentation
level. Well, there is one caveat. If your block of statements contains only one single
statement, then you can specify it on the same line of, say, a conditional statement or
looping statement. The following example should make this clear:
>>> flag = True
>>> if flag: print 'Yes'
...
Yes
Notice that the single statement is used in-place and not as a separate block. Although, you
can use this for making your program smaller, I strongly recommend avoiding this short-cut
method, except for error checking, mainly because it will be much easier to add an extra
92
Python en:More
statement if you are using proper indentation.
Lambda Forms
A lambda statement is used to create new function objects and then return them at
runtime.
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: lambda.py
def make_repeater(n):
return lambda s: s * n
twice = make_repeater(2)
print(twice('word'))
print(twice(5))
Output:
$ python lambda.py
wordword
10
How It Works:
Here, we use a function make_repeater to create new function objects at runtime and
return it. A lambda statement is used to create the function object. Essentially, the lambda
takes a parameter followed by a single expression only which becomes the body of the
function and the value of this expression is returned by the new function. Note that even a
print statement cannot be used inside a lambda form, only expressions.
TODO
Can we do a list.sort() by providing a compare function created using lambda?
points = [ { 'x' : 2, 'y' : 3 }, { 'x' : 4, 'y' : 1 } ]
# points.sort(lambda a, b : cmp(a['x'], b['x']))
List Comprehension
List comprehensions are used to derive a new list from an existing list. Suppose you have a
list of numbers and you want to get a corresponding list with all the numbers multiplied by
2 only when the number itself is greater than 2. List comprehensions are ideal for such
situations.
#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: list_comprehension.py
listone = [2, 3, 4]
listtwo = [2*i for i in listone if i > 2]
print(listtwo)
Output:
93
Python en:More
$ python list_comprehension.py
[6, 8]
How It Works:
Here, we derive a new list by specifying the manipulation to be done (2*i) when some
condition is satisfied (if i > 2). Note that the original list remains unmodified.
The advantage of using list comprehensions is that it reduces the amount of boilerplate
code required when we use loops to process each element of a list and store it in a new list.
Receiving Tuples and Lists in Functions

There is a special way of receiving parameters to a function as a tuple or a dictionary using
the * or ** prefix respectively. This is useful when taking variable number of arguments in
the function.
>>> def powersum(power, *args):
...
'''Return the sum of each argument raised to specified power.'''
...
total = 0
...
for i in args:
...
total += pow(i, power)
...
return total
...
>>> powersum(2, 3, 4)
25
>>> powersum(2, 10)
100
Because we have a * prefix on the args variable, all extra arguments passed to the
function are stored in args as a tuple. If a ** prefix had been used instead, the extra
parameters would be considered to be key/value pairs of a dictionary.
exec and eval

The exec function is used to execute Python statements which are stored in a string or file,
as opposed to written in the program itself. For example, we can generate a string
containing Python code at runtime and then execute these statements using the exec
statement:
>>> exec('print("Hello World")')
Hello World
Similarly, the eval function is used to evaluate valid Python expressions which are stored
in a string. A simple example is shown below.
>>> eval('2*3')
6
94
Python en:More
The assert statement

The assert statement is used to assert that something is true. For example, if you are very
sure that you will have at least one element in a list you are using and want to check this,
and raise an error if it is not true, then assert statement is ideal in this situation. When
the assert statement fails, an AssertionError is raised.
>>> mylist = ['item']
>>> assert len(mylist) >= 1
>>> mylist.pop()
'item'
>>> mylist
[]
>>> assert len(mylist) >= 1
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
AssertionError
The assert statement should be used judiciously. Most of the time, it is better to catch
exceptions, either handle the problem or display an error message to the user and then
quit.
The repr function

The repr function is used to obtain a canonical string representation of the object. The
interesting part is that you will have eval(repr(object)) == object most of the time.
>>> i = []
>>> i.append('item')
>>> repr(i)
"['item']"
>>> eval(repr(i))
['item']
>>> eval(repr(i)) == i
True
Basically, the repr function is used to obtain a printable representation of the object. You
can control what your classes return for the repr function by defining the __repr__
method in your class.
Summary
We have covered some more features of Python in this chapter and yet we haven't covered
all the features of Python. However, at this stage, we have covered most of what you are
ever going to use in practice. This is sufficient for you to get started with whatever
programs you are going to create.
Next, we will discuss how to explore Python further.

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1

A Reference Book By:-

Python en:Table of Contents

Why not Perl?

Why not Ruby?

What Programmers Say

About Python 3.0

For Linux and BSD users

For Windows Users

For Mac OS X Users

Python en:First Steps

Using The Interpreter Prompt

Using A Source File

Executable Python Programs

is a multi-line string. This is the first line.

Strings Are Immutable

String Literal Concatenation

The format Method

lowercase ASCII or Unicode character) or an underscore ('_').

Example: Using Variables And Literal Constants

Logical And Physical Lines

Python en:Operators and Expressions

Adds the two objects

3 + 5 gives 8. 'a' + 'b' gives 'ab'.

Either gives a negative

-5.2 gives a negative number. 50 - 24 gives 26.

Gives the multiplication of the

2 * 3 gives 6. 'la' * 3 gives 'lalala'.

Returns x to the power of y

Floor Division Returns the floor of the

Returns the remainder of the

8 % 3 gives 2. -25.5 % 2.25 gives 1.5.

Shifts the bits of the number

Shifts the bits of the number

11 >> 1 gives 5. 11 is represented in bits by 1011

Bitwise AND of the numbers

Bitwise OR of the numbers

Bitwise XOR of the numbers

The bit-wise inversion of x is

Returns whether x is less than

5 < 3 gives False and 3 < 5 gives True.

Returns whether x is greater

5 > 3 returns True. If both operands are numbers,

Returns whether x is less than

x = 3; y = 6; x <= y returns True.

Returns whether x is greater

x = 4; y = 3; x >= 3 returns True.

Compares if the objects are

Compares if the objects are

If x is True, it returns False. If x = True; not x returns False.

x and y returns False if x is

x = False; y = True; x and y returns False

If x is True, it returns True,

x = True; y = False; x or y returns True.

Shortcut for math operation and assignment

<, <=, >, >=, !=, ==

Addition and subtraction

Multiplication, Division, Floor Division and Remainder