CMPT120 J.

Ye

Variables
&
Control Structures (1)

• Variables
• Arithmetic
• Conditional statements
• User Input

1
Python Comments
• In Python, comments are lines that start with a #

• Comments let you include information that is meant only

for the programmer. The Python interpreter ignores
comments.

• Comments make code easier to understand, thus easier to

maintain

• Useful tip: if you need to comment out a Python code

block, select the block, use two keys alt+3; to reverse it,
use alt+4

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 Variables
What is a variable?
• Variables hold “values” that may vary
• In computer programming, a variable is the name of a
memory address (location) that can store a value or a
piece of information.
• Python variables do not directly store values, but store
references to(addresses of) the actual value – this will be
discussed in more detail later.
• Whenever we need the program to temporarily
remember some information, we will use a variable to
hold it
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 Variables
Types of Variables

• A variable holds a specific type of information (or value)

• Some common types we are going to use are:
– boolean A boolean value can be either True or False
– integer such as 923, -5
– float Any rational number, such as 2.678
– string Any sequence of characters, such as “cmpt120”

• Note: string “12” and integer 12 are completely different

entities. We can use function type(x) to check the type of x
• Variable Type in Python (and many other languages) is an
important issue
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 Variables
Variable Assignment
• To assign a value to a variable, we use a variable assignment
statement, for example, all the three instructions as follows are
variable assignment statements:
age = 20
n1 = 10.5
n = n1 + 5
age, n1, and n are all variables. They got the value 20, 10.5,
and 15.5 respectively after these instructions

• Once a variable (e.g. n1) got a value (10.5), whenever we want

to use the value, we can use the variable name to represent the
value
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 Variables
Examples
aString = "123" # aString is a variable

print(aString) # we're invoking function print

aString = "456" # now aString holds a new value

aString = aString + "789"

# if a and b are two strings, a+b combines
# two strings into one

print(aString) # output?
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Variable Names Variables

• Consist of letters, digits and/or underscore, no other characters

• Case matters
e.g. sum and Sum are two different variables
• Begin with a letter, not a digit
• Python reserved words/keywords cannot be variables
To check the keyword list, type following commands in interpreter:
>>> import keyword
>>> keyword.kwlist

• Should be meaningful, thus can be long

e.g. average_salary, numOfChars, person3
• By convention, begin with a lower-case letter
• Don’t use function name as a variable
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 Arithmetic
Arithmetic Operators

Higher Precedence

() brackets
** exponentiation (ab : a**b)
+, − unary plus / minus
*, / , % , // multiplication, division, modulo, floor division
+, − (binary) addition, subtraction
Lower Precedence

E.g. 2 ** (6 / 2) + − 4 − 5 % 3 evaluates to 2.0

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 Arithmetic
Beyond Basic Arithmetic
• You can find more mathematic functions in the math
module
– A module is a file containing functions and variables that can be
imported to another program
– From Python shell, go to help -> Python docs -> global module
index, you can see various pre-defined modules
• E.g.
>>> import math
>>> math.sqrt (9)
3.0
>>> math.factorial (5)
120
>>> math.pi
3.1415926535897931 9
User Input
• A program can take user input and store the information
user entered in a variable.
• The built-in function input can be used for this purpose:
<variable> = input(<prompt>)
• In Python 3, the input function always returns the
string type. E.g.
>>> num = input ("enter: ")
enter: 9
>>> type(num)
<class 'str'>
>>> num + 2
TypeError: can only concatenate str (not
"int") to str
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User Input (cont)
To fix the error, use type casting functions such as int() or
float() to convert the string type to the required one

E.g.
>>> num = int ( input ("enter: ") )
enter: 9
>>> type(num)
<class 'int'>
>>> num + 2
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Coding exercise: ask the user for a positive number (assume the user
always enters a valid/positive number), then your program outputs the
square and the square root of the number.
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Conditional Statements
• A conditional statement lets us choose which
statement will be executed next
• Therefore they are sometimes called selection
statements, branching statements
• Conditional statements give us the power to make
basic decisions
• The conditional statements are :
– if statement
– if-else statement
– if-elif statement
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 Conditional Statements
The if Statement
• The if statement has the following syntax:
The condition must be a
boolean expression. It must
if is a Python evaluate to either True or False.
reserved word

if <condition>:
<body>
Indentation
matters!!

If the condition is true, the body is executed.

If it is false, the body is skipped.

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 Conditional Statements
The if-else Statement
• An else clause can be added to an if statement to make an if-
else statement

if <condition>:
<body1>
else:
<body2>

If the condition is true, body1 is executed; if the

condition is false, body2 is executed

One or the other will be executed, but not both

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 Conditional Statements
The if-elif Statement
• An elif clause can be added to an if statement to make an if-
elif statement

if <condition1>:
<body1>
elif <condition2>:
<body2>

If the condition1 is true, body1 is executed;

otherwise if the condition2 is true, body2 is executed

This structure can be followed by more elif clause or

else clause
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 Conditional Statements
Relational (Comparison) Operators
• A condition often uses one of the following
comparison operators, which all return boolean
results:
== equal to
!= not equal to
< less than
> greater than
<= less than or equal to
>= greater than or equal to

• Note the difference between the equality operator

( ==) and the assignment operator ( = )
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 Conditional Statements
Logical Operators
• There are three logical operators as follows:
not
and
or

• They all take boolean operands and produce boolean

results
• not is a unary operator (it operates on one operand)
• and and or are binary operators (each operates on
two operands)
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 Conditional Statements
Boolean Expressions
• A boolean expression is any expression that
evaluates to True or False

• Such expressions are often built from logical and

relational operators

• Use round brackets to make them clear, e.g.

(x < y) and (y < z)

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 Conditional Statements
Boolean Expressions (cont)

• Conditions can be complex expressions, e.g.

if total <= MAX and not found :
print("Processing…")

All logical operators have lower precedence than

the relational operators

Logical not has higher precedence than logical and

and logical or

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