Python Quick Start [Leanpub PDF/iPad/Kindle]

Python is an extremely popular language, and is an excellent choice for first time programmers, because it is simple to get started with, but extremely powerful once you get to know it. Python in the language of choice for machine learning and web development, but is can also be used for anything from system scripts to games to desktop applications. It is also embedded in many existing applications to provide a scripting mechanism, which can be used to automate many applications such as Paintshop or Blender.

This book will help you learn Python whether you are a complete beginner or you already have experience programming in other languages. It teaches all the core features of the language, step by step, with example code.

Foreword

Who is this book for?
About the author
Keep in touch

Introduction

What is Python
History of Python
Zen of Python

1Getting started with Python

1.1Installing Python
1.1.1Windows
1.1.2Linux
1.2Running IDLE
1.3Simple maths in Python
1.4Variables
1.4.1Calculations with variables
1.4.2Changing the value of a variable
1.4.3Variable names
1.5Strings
1.5.1Strings in variables
1.6Console shortcuts

2Hello world

2.1Writing a program
2.1.1Running the IDLE console window
2.1.2Opening an edit window
2.1.3Typing in your code
2.1.4Type, don’t copy and paste
2.1.5Running your code
2.1.6Seeing the result
2.2In case of errors
2.3Print statements - outputting text
2.4Sequencing
2.5Input statements - getting user input
2.5.1Inputting a number
2.6Selection
2.6.1Indentation
2.7Iteration
2.8Comments

3Variables and values

3.1Creating and using variables
3.2Variables can store any type of data
3.3Naming variables
3.3.1Legal variable names
3.3.2Reserved words
3.3.3Choosing variable names
3.3.4Naming conventions
3.3.5Unicode characters
3.4Variables point to values
3.5None
3.6Multiple assignments

4Numbers and maths

4.1Types of number
4.1.1Integers
4.1.2Floating point numbers
4.1.3Finding the type
4.2Basic maths operations
4.2.1Addition
4.2.2Int and float results
4.2.3Subtraction
4.2.4Multiplication
4.2.5Division
4.2.6Power
4.2.7Floor divide
4.2.8Modulo
4.2.9Unary operators
4.2.10Augmented assignment
4.3Precedence and brackets
4.3.1Statements and expressions
4.4Built-in maths functions
4.4.1abs()
4.4.2min() and max()
4.4.3int()
4.4.4float()
4.5math module
4.6Limitations of floats
4.7More advanced topics
4.7.1Scientific notation for floats
4.7.2Complex numbers

5Strings

5.1Creating strings
5.2String type
5.3Operations on strings
5.3.1Methods
5.4Converting between strings and other data types
5.5How to use special characters in a string
5.5.1Quote characters
5.5.2Unicode characters
5.5.3Newline characters
5.5.4The escape character \

6Loops

6.1For loops
6.1.1The loop variable
6.2The range function
6.2.1Changing the start value
6.2.2Using a step value
6.3For loop example - printing a times table
6.4While loops
6.5While loop example - getting user input
6.6Nested loops

7Input and output

7.1Input prompts
7.2Inputting numbers
7.3Print
7.4Print separators

8If statements

8.1if statements
8.1.1Example if statement
8.2Comparison operators
8.3Else statement
8.4Elif statement
8.5Compound conditions
8.6Comparison operator chaining
8.7Precedence

9Lists

9.1What is a list?
9.1.1Lists vs arrays
9.2Creating lists
9.2.1Empty lists
9.2.2The list function
9.3The list type
9.4Accessing list elements
9.4.1Reading an element
9.4.2Changing an element
9.5Operations on lists
9.6Looping over a list
9.6.1Doing calculations in a loop
9.7List functions
9.7.1Finding the length of the list
9.7.2Finding the min a max values
9.7.3Adding up the values in a list
9.8List methods
9.8.1Adding elements
9.8.2Searching for elements in a list
9.8.3Removing elements
9.8.4Other methods
9.9Two-dimensional lists
9.9.1Ragged arrays
9.10Aliasing
9.10.1Reassigning variables
9.10.2Does aliasing affect numbers?
9.11Examples
9.11.1Finding every element of a given value
9.11.2Creating a 2-dimensional list of zeros

10Using functions

10.1Why use functions?
10.2Built-in functions
10.2.1repr
10.2.2chr and ord
10.2.3help and dir
10.3Importing modules
10.3.1Simple import statement
10.3.2Importing individual functions
10.3.3Aliasing a module
10.3.4Importing all functions (don’t do this)
10.4How to call functions
10.4.1Optional parameters
10.4.2Variable number of arguments
10.4.3Named optional parameters
10.5Defining your own functions
10.5.1Printing @s
10.5.2Printing more @s
10.5.3Returning a value

11More loops

11.1The break operator
11.1.1Break in a for loop
11.1.2Break in a while loop
11.2The continue operator
11.3Using else with a loop
11.4Nested loop statements
11.4.1Printing times tables
11.5Modifying a for loop
11.6Looping in reverse order
11.6.1Using range() to count backwards - ugly
11.6.2reversed()
11.7sorted()
11.8Looping over multiple items
11.8.1zip
11.8.2How zip() works
11.9More about zip()
11.10Accessing the loop count using enumerate
11.11Looping over selected items
11.11.1Using filter
11.11.2The advantage of using filter

12Programming logic

12.1Boolean types
12.2Comparison operators and their opposites
12.3Boolean operations and De Morgan’s Laws
12.4Ternary operators
12.5Comparing containers
12.5.1Strings
12.5.2Lists
12.5.3Other containers
12.6Membership testing
12.7Identity testing
12.8Truthy values
12.8.1Numbers
12.8.2Strings
12.8.3Lists
12.8.4Other collections
12.8.5None
12.8.6Other objects
12.9Short circuit evaluation
12.9.1Short-circuiting with the or operator
12.9.2Short-circuiting with the and operator
12.9.3Short-circuiting to avoid errors
12.9.4The value of an or/and expression
12.9.5Getting a true or false value

13Slices

13.1Slicing a list
13.2Using negative indices
13.3Delete or replace a slice of a list
13.4Slicing tuples and strings
13.5Loop over a slice
13.6Using steps

14More strings

14.1Raw strings
14.2Multi-line strings
14.3Looping over a string
14.4Joining strings
14.5Splitting a string
14.6Formatting strings
14.7The in operator
14.8Other string methods
14.8.1Changing case
14.8.2Dealing with whitespace
14.8.3Padding
14.8.4Search
14.8.5Splitting strings
14.8.6Categorising strings

15Tuples

15.1What is a tuple?
15.2Creating a tuple
15.3Accessing elements
15.4Packing and unpacking tuples
15.4.1Packing a tuple
15.4.2Unpacking a tuple
15.4.3Real-life examples
15.5Tuple vs list operations
15.5.1Tuple slices
15.5.2Adding elements to a tuple
15.5.3Finding elements
15.5.4Removing elements
15.5.5Looping
15.5.6In case of emergency
15.6Pros and cons of immutability

16Exceptions

16.1Program errors
16.2What are exceptions
16.3Exception types
16.3.1ImportError
16.3.2IndexError
16.3.3TypeError
16.3.4ValueError
16.3.5ZeroDivisionError
16.4Catching exceptions
16.4.1Only catch exceptions you can handle
16.4.2Accessing the exception message
16.5Using else with exceptions
16.6Using finally with exceptions
16.7Throwing exceptions

17Working with files

17.1Using files
17.1.1Opening the file
17.1.2Reading and writing data
17.1.3Closing the file
17.2Reading data
17.2.1Code for reading a file
17.2.2Reading lines from a file
17.2.3Looping over the lines in a file
17.3Writing data
17.3.1Code to write a file
17.3.2The write function
17.4Using with statements
17.5CSV data
17.5.1Reading CSV data
17.5.2Trying the code
17.5.3Formatting the output
17.5.4Writing CSV data
17.5.5Understanding the code
17.5.6Trying the code

18More books from this author

18.1Numpy Recipes
18.2Computer Graphics in Python with Pycairo
18.3Functional Programming in Python

Python Quick Start

You pay

Author earns

...Or Buy With Credits!

About

Share this book

Categories

Feedback

Author

Contents