Page 1

PYTHON PROGRAMMING

UNIT – I:
Introduction:

History of Python :

The History of Python Starts with ABC. ABC (All Basic Codes) is a General-Purpose Programming Language
Developed in the Netherlands. The greatest achievement of ABC was to influence the design of python

o Python laid its foundation in the late 1980s.

o The implementation of Python was started in the December 1989 by Guido Van Rossum at
CWI (Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica) -> ("National Research Institute for Mathematics
and Computer Science") in Netherland.
o In February 1991, van Rossum published the code (labeled version 0.9.0) to alt.sources.
o In 1994, Python 1.0 was released with new features like: lambda, map, filter, and reduce.
o Python 2.0 added new features like: list comprehensions, garbage collection system.
o On December 3, 2008, Python 3.0 (also called "Py3K") was released. It was designed to
rectify fundamental flaw of the language.
o Python is influenced by following programming languages:
o ABC language.
o Modula-3

what about the name "Python": Most people think about snakes, and even the logo depicts two snakes, but the
origin of the name has its root in British comic. Guido Van Rossum is a big fan of python’s flying circus

Python is now maintained by a core development team at the institute, although Guido van Rossum still holds a
vital role in directing its progress.
 Page 2

Need / Features of Python Programming Language

1. Easy to Learn and Use:

Python is easy to learn and use. It is developer-friendly and high level programming language.

Python is very easy to code. Compared to other popular languages like Java and C++, it is easier to
code in Python. Anyone can learn python syntax

Mastering Python requires learning about all its advanced concepts and packages and modules. That
takes time.

2. Free and Open-Source:

Firstly, Python is freely available. You can download it from the following
link https://www.python.org/downloads/
Secondly, it is open-source. This means that its source code is available to the public. You can
download it, change it, use it, and distribute it. This is called FLOSS(Free/Libre and Open Source
Software). As the Python community, we’re all headed toward one goal- an ever-bettering Python.

3. 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, we don’t need to remember the system architecture. It
looks more like a readable , human language.

4. Portable:
Let’s assume you’ve written a Python code for your Windows machine. Now, if you want to run it on
a Mac, you don’t need to make changes to it for the same. In other words, you can take one code and
run it on any machine, there is no need to write different code for different machines. This makes
Python a portable language.

5. Interpreted:
If you’re any familiar with languages like C++ or Java, you must first compile it, and then run it. But
in Python, there is no need to compile it. Internally, its source code is converted into an immediate
form called byte code. So, all you need to do is to run your Python code without worrying about
linking to libraries.
By interpreted, mean that the source code is executed line by line, and not all at once. Because of
this, it is easier to debug your code.
 Page 3

6. Object-Oriented:
A programming language that can model the real world is said to be object-oriented. It focuses on
objects, and combines data and functions.
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.

7. Extensible:
you can write some of your Python code in other languages like c or C++. 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 them from your Python program.

8. Embeddable:
we can put code in other languages in our Python source code. However, it is also possible to put our
Python source code in a different language like C/C++.

9. Large Standard Library:

There are over 300 standard library modules which contain classes for a wide variety of
programming tasks that you can use so you don’t have to write your own code for every single thing.
There are libraries for regular expressions, documentation-generation, unit-testing, web browsers,
threading, databases, CGI, email, image manipulation, and a lot of other functions for rapid
application development.

10. Python is Dynamically Typed:

Python is dynamically-typed. This means that the type for a value is decided at runtime, not in
advance. This is why we don’t need to specify the type of data while declaring it.

11. GUI Programming: (Graphical user interface) You can use Tk to create basic GUIs.

12. Important: Python has been an important part of Google since the beginning and remains
so as the system grows & evolves , Today dozens of Google engineers use Python Python
may become popular for the Internet , as new platforms such as Raspberry Pi are based
on it
 Page 4

Applications of Python Programming

Python is freely available for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux its popularity is constantly increased.
Python is a high-level general purpose programming language it is used to develop a wide range of
applications.

1) Web and Internet Development:

We can use Python to develop web applications. It provides libraries to handle internet
protocols such as HTML and XML, JSON, Email processing, request, beautifulSoup, Feed
parser etc. It also provides Frameworks such as Django, Pyramid, Flask etc to design and
develop web based applications. Some important developments are: Python Wiki Engines,
Python Blog Software etc.

 Frameworks such as Django and Pyramid.

 Micro-frameworks such as Flask and Bottle.
 Advanced content management systems such as Plone and django CMS.

Python's standard library supports many Internet protocols :

 HTML and XML
 JSON
 E-mail processing.
 Support for FTP, IMAP, and other Internet protocols.
 Easy-to-use socket interface.
 Page 5

2) GUI-Based Desktop Applications:

Python provides Tk GUI library to develop user interface in python based application. Python has
simple syntax, modular architecture, rich text processing tools and the ability to work on multiple
operating systems which make it a desirable choice for developing desktop-based applications. There
are various GUI toolkits like wxPython, PyQt or PyGtk available which help developers create
highly functional Graphical User Interface (GUI). The Kivy is popular for writing multi touch
applications.

3) Scientific and Numeric Applications:

Python is popular and widely used in scientific and numeric computing. Some useful library and
package are SciPy, Pandas, IPython, NumPy etc. SciPy is group of packages of engineering, science
and mathematics.

 SciPy – A collection of packages for mathematics, science, and engineering.

 Pandas--A data-analysis and -modeling library
 IPython – A powerful shell for easy editing and recording of work sessions. It also supports
visualizations and parallel computing.
 NumPy lets us deal with complex numerical calculations.

4) Software Development Application :

Python is helpful for software development process. It works as a support language and can be
used for build control, management and testing etc.
 SCons for build control.
 Buildbot and Apache Gump for automated continuous compilation and testing.
 Roundup or Trac for bug tracking and project management.

5) Python Applications in Education :

The Education System is totally turning into digital. Requirements of various tools in the learning,
teaching, and managing with the help software is increased. Therefore, Python programming
language becomes a front-runner in developing various tools for the modern education system. in
education has huge scope as it is a great language to teach in schools or even learn on your own.

6) Python Applications in Business :

Python is also a great choice to develop ERP and e-commerce systems:
 Tryton – A three-tier, high-level general-purpose application platform.
 Odoo – A management software with a range of business applications. With that, it’s an all-
rounder and forms a complete suite of enterprise-management applications in-effect
 Page 6

7) Games and 3D Graphics :

Python has various modules, libraries and platforms that support development of games. For
example, PySoy is a 3D game engine supporting Python 3, and PyGame provides functionality
and a library for game development. games built using Python including Civilization-IV,
Disney’s Toontown Online, Vega Strike etc.

8) Network Programming :
Python plays an essential role in network programming. The standard library of Python has full
support for network protocols, encoding and decoding of data and other networking concepts
and it is simpler to write network programs in Python than that of C++.

There are two levels of network service access in Python. These are:
 Low-Level Access
 High-Level Access

In the first case, programmers can use and access the basic socket support for the operating
system using Python's libraries, and programmers can implement both connection-less and
connection-oriented protocols for programming.
Sockets are the endpoints of a bidirectional communications channel.

9) Database Access :
This is one of the hottest Python Applications. With Python, you have:
 Custom and ODBC interfaces to MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MS SQL Server, and others.
These are freely available for download.
 Object databases like Durus and ZODB

 Durus is a simpler object database

 The Zope Object Database (ZODB) is an object-oriented database for transparently and
persistently storing Python objects

10) Operating Systems :

Python is often an integral part of Linux distributions. For instance, Ubuntu’s Ubiquity Installer,
and Fedora’s and Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s Anaconda Installer are written in Python

11) Prototyping :

Besides being quick and easy to learn, Python also has the open source advantage of being free
with the support of a large community. This makes it the preferred choice for prototype
development. Further, the agility, extensibility and scalability and ease of refactoring code
associated with Python allow faster development from initial prototype.
 Page 7

12) mage Processing :

Python has been used to make 2D imaging software such as Inkscape, GIMP, Paint Shop Pro
and Scribus. Further, 3D animation packages, like Blender, 3ds Max

Python Programming using The REPL(shell)

A Read–Eval–Print Loop (REPL), also known as an interactive top level or language shell, is a
simple, interactive computer programming environment that takes single user inputs evaluates them,
and returns the result to the user;

A program written in a REPL environment is executed piecewise. The term is most usually used to
interactive environment. Common examples include command line shells

1. Read: take user input.

2. Eval: evaluate the input.
3. Print: shows the output to the user.
4. Loop: repeat.

IDLE startup details:

 IDLE short for integrated development environment or integrated development and

learning environment
 IDLE is an development environment for Python Programming
 An IDE combines a program editor and a language environment as a convenience to the
programmer.

Launching IDLE:

Clicking on the IDLE selection will launch IDLE and display the Python Shell window.
 Page 8

Using the Python Shell Window

The top of IDLE's Python Shell window will look something like this:

This is the main window to IDLE, and what we see right now is called the "Interpreter" (or "shell")
window. The Interpreter allows us to enter commands directly into Python, and as soon as we enter
in a command, Python will execute it and display its result.

'>>>' signs act as a prompt for us: Python is ready to read in a new command by giving us that visual
cue. Also, we notice that as we enter in commands, Python will give us its output immediately.

Let's try a few more commands. If we look below:

 Page 9

we can't directly save what's on the interpreter window, because it will include both our commands
and the system's responses. let's start with opening up a new window.

Here's the result of that New Window:

Let's do that typing those commands into our Program window.

Let's save the file now. The Save command is located under the File menu:
 Page 10

saved the program and run the If we look at the menus on our program window

displaying its results in the Interpreter window.

Output:
 Page 11

Python variables and assignment

 Variables plays a very important role in most programming languages, and python is no exception.
Variables are nothing but reserved memory locations to store values.

 This means that when you create a variable you reserve some space in memory.
ThisInmeans
Python, we don't need to specify the type of variable because Python is dynamically-typed.
that the type for a value is decided at runtime, not in advance. This is why we don’t
need to specify the type of data while declaring it.

replaced
Non technically, you can suppose variable as a bag to store books in it and those books can be
at anytime.
underscore.
Variable names can be a group of both letters and digits, but they have to begin with a letter or an

Variable Names:
A variable can have a short name (like x and y) or a more descriptive name
(age, MIC, total_volume, tv9, _srikanth).

Rules for Python variables:

 A variable name must start with a letter or the underscore character

 A variable name cannot start with a number
 A variable name can only contain alpha-numeric characters and underscores (A-z, 0-9, and _
)
 Variable names are case-sensitive (age, Age and AGE are three different variables)

Assignment : The equal (=) operator is used to assign value to a variable.

Example:1 Assigning values to a Variables in Python
 Page 12

Output:

Example: 2 Changing value of a variable

Output:

Example: 3 Assigning multiple values to multiple variables

Output:

Example: 4 Assign the same value to multiple variables:

Output:
 Page 13

keywords used in Python

functionKeywords are the reserved words in Python. We cannot use a keyword as variable name,
name or any other identifier.

 They are used to define the syntax and structure of the Python language.

All keywords in Python are case sensitive. except True, False and None So, you must be careful
while using them in your code.

 There are 33 keywords in Python 3.3. This number can vary slightly in upcoming
versions

toshown
get hold the up-to-date list, you can open Python shell and run the following commands as
in the below snippet.

> import keyword

> keyword.kwlist
['False', 'None', 'True', 'and', 'as', 'assert', 'break', 'class', 'continue', 'def', 'del', 'elif', 'else', 'except',
'finally', 'for', 'from', 'global', 'if', 'import', 'in', 'is', 'lambda', 'nonlocal', 'not', 'or', 'pass', 'raise', 'return',
'try', 'while', 'with', 'yield']

Keyword Summary Example

and Logical operator to test whether two things are <conditional expression> and
both True. <conditional expression>
x>2 and x<10

as Assign a file object to a variable. Used with open(<name of

with with. file>,<file mode>) as <object
Let your code refer to a module under a different name>: import cPickle as
name (also called an alias). Used with import. pickle

break Stop execution of a loop. for i in range(10):

if i%2 ==0:
break

class Define a custom object. class <name of class>(object):

“”Your docstring“”
class MyClass(object):

P.SRIKANTH DEPARTMENT OF CSE MIC www.sristudy.in

 Page 14

“”A cool function.””

continue Skip balance of loop and begin a new iteration. for i in range(10):
if i%2 ==0:
continue

def Define a function. def <name of function>(<argument

list>):
“”Your docstring“”
def my_function():
“”This does… “”

elif Add conditional test to an if clause. See if.

else Add an alternative code block. See if.

for Create a loop which iterates through elements of for <dummy variable name> in
a list (or other iterable). <sequence>:
for i in range(10):

from Import specific functions from a module without from <module name> import <name
importing the whole module. of function or object>
from random import randint

global Make a variable global in scope. (If a variable is global x

defined in the main section, you can change its
value within a function.)

if Create a condition. If the condition is True, the if <conditional expression>:

associated code block is executed. Otherwise, <code block>
any elif commands are processed. If there are [elif <conditional expression>:
none, or none are satisfied, execute <code block>, …]
the else block if there is one. [else:
<code block>]
if x == 1:
print(“x is 1”)
elif x == 2:
print(“x is 2”)
elif x > 3:
print(“x is greater than 3”)

P.SRIKANTH DEPARTMENT OF CSE MIC www.sristudy.in

 Page 15

else
print(“x is not greater than 3, nor is
it 1 one or 2”)

import Use code defined in another file without retyping import <name of module>
it. import random

in Used to test whether a given value is one of the 1 in range(10)

elements of an object.

is Used to test whether names reference the same x = None

object. x is None # faster
than x == None

lambda Shorthand function definition. Usually used lamda <dummy variables>:

where a function needs to be passed as an <expression using dummy variables>
argument to another function. times = lambda x, y: x*y
command=lambda x:
self.draw_line(self.control_points)

not Logical negation, used to negate a logical 10 not in range(10)

condition. Don’t use for testing greater than, less
than, or equal.

or Logical operator to test whether at least one of <conditional expression> or

two things is True. <conditional expression>
x<2 or x>10

pass Placeholder keyword. Does nothing but stop for i in range (10):
Python complaining that a code block is empty. pass

print Output text to a terminal. print(“Hello World!“)

return Return from the execution of a function. If a return <value or expression>

value is specified, return that value, otherwise return x+2
return None.
 Page 16

while Execute a code block while the associated while <conditional expression>:
condition is True. while True:
pass

with Get Python to manage a resource (like a file) for with open(<name of file>,<file
you. mode>) as <object name>:

input – output functions in python

Real world programs need to be interactive. That means you need to take some sort of input or
information from the user and work on that input.
We canForachieve
example, you would want to take input from the user and then print some results back.
this using the input()function and print() function respectively
We must always remember that the input function takes user’s input as a string. So whether your
input a number or a string it is treated as a string only.

Example:1

print("Enter your name:")

x = input()

print("Hello, " + x)

output : Enter your name:

srikanth

Hello, srikanth

Example:2

name = input("what's your name :")

age = input("Enter your age:")

print(name + " you are " + age + " years old")

 Page 17

output:

what's your name : srikanth

Enter your age : 28

srikanth you are 28 years old

INDENTATIONS

White spaces at the beginning of the line is called indentation. The whitespaces or indentations
are very important in python
 In most programming languages, indentations has no effect on programming logic. It is
used to align statements to make the code readable.
 In python indentation is used to associate and group statements

Example of indentation

The level of indentation groups statements to form a block of statements this means that statements
in a block must have the same indentation level. python very strictly checks the indentation level and
gives an error if indentation is not correct.
 Page 18

NOTE: the ^ is a symbol that indicates where error has occurred in the program

All statements in side a block should be at the same indentation level

Example: