Python Basics

Python is a high-level, dynamically typed multiparadigm programming language. Python code is often said to be almost like pseudocode, since it allows you to express very powerful ideas in very few lines of code while being very readable. As an example, here is an implementation of the classic quicksort algorithm in Python:

def quicksort(arr):
    if len(arr) <= 1:
        return arr
    pivot = arr[len(arr) // 2]
    left = [x for x in arr if x < pivot]
    middle = [x for x in arr if x == pivot]
    right = [x for x in arr if x > pivot]
    return quicksort(left) + middle + quicksort(right)

print(quicksort([3,6,8,10,1,2,1]))
# Prints "[1, 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 10]"

Basic data types

Like most languages, Python has a number of basic types including integers, floats, booleans, and strings. These data types behave in ways that are familiar from other programming languages. Numbers: Integers and floats work as you would expect from other languages:

x = 3
print(type(x)) # Prints "<class 'int'>"
print(x)       # Prints "3"
print(x + 1)   # Addition; prints "4"
print(x - 1)   # Subtraction; prints "2"
print(x * 2)   # Multiplication; prints "6"
print(x ** 2)  # Exponentiation; prints "9"
x += 1
print(x)  # Prints "4"
x *= 2
print(x)  # Prints "8"
y = 2.5
print(type(y)) # Prints "<class 'float'>"
print(y, y + 1, y * 2, y ** 2) # Prints "2.5 3.5 5.0 6.25"

Note that unlike many languages, Python does not have unary increment (x++) or decrement (x--) operators. Python also has built-in types for complex numbers; you can find all of the details in the documentation. Booleans: Python implements all of the usual operators for Boolean logic, but uses English words rather than symbols (&&, ||, etc.):

t = True
f = False
print(type(t)) # Prints "<class 'bool'>"
print(t and f) # Logical AND; prints "False"
print(t or f)  # Logical OR; prints "True"
print(not t)   # Logical NOT; prints "False"
print(t != f)  # Logical XOR; prints "True"

Strings: Python has great support for strings:

hello = 'hello'    # String literals can use single quotes
world = "world"    # or double quotes; it does not matter.
print(hello)       # Prints "hello"
print(len(hello))  # String length; prints "5"
hw = hello + ' ' + world  # String concatenation
print(hw)  # prints "hello world"
hw12 = '%s %s %d' % (hello, world, 12)  # sprintf style string formatting
print(hw12)  # prints "hello world 12"

String objects have a bunch of useful methods; for example:

s = "hello"
print(s.capitalize())  # Capitalize a string; prints "Hello"
print(s.upper())       # Convert a string to uppercase; prints "HELLO"
print(s.rjust(7))      # Right-justify a string, padding with spaces; prints "  hello"
print(s.center(7))     # Center a string, padding with spaces; prints " hello "
print(s.replace('l', '(ell)'))  # Replace all instances of one substring with another;
                                # prints "he(ell)(ell)o"
print('  world '.strip())  # Strip leading and trailing whitespace; prints "world"

More information can be found in the Python documentation.

Containers

Python includes several built-in container types: lists, dictionaries, sets, and tuples.

Lists A list is the Python equivalent of an array, but is resizeable and can contain elements of different types:

xs = [3, 1, 2]    # Create a list
print(xs, xs[2])  # Prints "[3, 1, 2] 2"
print(xs[-1])     # Negative indices count from the end of the list; prints "2"
xs[2] = 'foo'     # Lists can contain elements of different types
print(xs)         # Prints "[3, 1, 'foo']"
xs.append('bar')  # Add a new element to the end of the list
print(xs)         # Prints "[3, 1, 'foo', 'bar']"
x = xs.pop()      # Remove and return the last element of the list
print(x, xs)      # Prints "bar [3, 1, 'foo']"

As usual, you can find all the gory details about lists in the documentation. Slicing: In addition to accessing list elements one at a time, Python provides concise syntax to access sublists; this is known as slicing:

nums = list(range(5))     # range is a built-in function that creates a list of integers
print(nums)               # Prints "[0, 1, 2, 3, 4]"
print(nums[2:4])          # Get a slice from index 2 to 4 (exclusive); prints "[2, 3]"
print(nums[2:])           # Get a slice from index 2 to the end; prints "[2, 3, 4]"
print(nums[:2])           # Get a slice from the start to index 2 (exclusive); prints "[0, 1]"
print(nums[:])            # Get a slice of the whole list; prints "[0, 1, 2, 3, 4]"
print(nums[:-1])          # Slice indices can be negative; prints "[0, 1, 2, 3]"
nums[2:4] = [8, 9]        # Assign a new sublist to a slice
print(nums)               # Prints "[0, 1, 8, 9, 4]"

We will see slicing again in the context of numpy arrays. Loops: You can loop over the elements of a list like this:

animals = ['cat', 'dog', 'monkey']
for animal in animals:
    print(animal)
# Prints "cat", "dog", "monkey", each on its own line.

If you want access to the index of each element within the body of a loop, use the built-in enumerate function:

animals = ['cat', 'dog', 'monkey']
for idx, animal in enumerate(animals):
    print('#%d: %s' % (idx + 1, animal))
# Prints "#1: cat", "#2: dog", "#3: monkey", each on its own line

List comprehensions: When programming, frequently we want to transform one type of data into another. As a simple example, consider the following code that computes square numbers:

nums = [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
squares = []
for x in nums:
    squares.append(x ** 2)
print(squares)   # Prints [0, 1, 4, 9, 16]

You can make this code simpler using a list comprehension:

nums = [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
squares = [x ** 2 for x in nums]
print(squares)   # Prints [0, 1, 4, 9, 16]