EML4930/EML6934: Lecture 01 - About
Python
Basics: data types, math, logic, if statement
Charles Jekel
August 31, 2017
Results from the first HW
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The operating systems used by the class
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Textbook for this lecture
A whirlwind Tour of Python by Dr. VanderPlas is a short book to prepare
users with the bare essentials for working with Python.
It is also available for free at [Link]
free/files/[Link]
or [Link]
3
Comments
# This is a comment in Python
’’’
This is a bulk comment in python
Any line between the start and the end
is part of the comment
’’’
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Assigning variables
# Variables can be easily assigned
# this code assigns integer 10 to x
x = 10
This officially defines a pointer named x that points to the integer 10.
We can change what x points to at any time.
x = 10 # x is the integer 10
x = 10. # x is the floating point EEE-754 double precision
x = 10.0 # same as x = 10.
x = ’ten’ # x is now a string
x = (0,1,2) # x is now a tuple
x = [0,1,2] # x is now a list
x = 1; y = 2; z = 3 # assigns x = 1, y = 2, and z = 3
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Demo - Consequences of pointers
Be careful.
x = [1,2,3]
y = x
x[0] = 4
print(y)
Numpy warning!
import numpy as np
x = [Link]([10])
y = x
x += 5
print(y)
# this doesn’t happen if I used x = x + 5
# this doesn’t happen if x = 10 (instead of [Link]([10]))
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Math operators
Operater Name Description
a+b Addition Sum of a and b
a-b Subtraction Difference of a and b
a*b Multiplication Product of a and b
a/b True division Quotient of a and b
a // b Floor division Quotient of a and b , removing fractional parts
a%b Modulus Remainder after division of a by b
a ** b Exponentiation a raised to the power of b
-a Negation The negative of a
+a Unary plus a unchanged (rarely used)
Page 18 of A Whirlwind Tour of Python by VanderPlas.
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Division in Python2
Let’s take a look at division in Python2
a = 3
b = 2
c = a/b
So we have integer a divided by integer b and I’m familiar with
programming so I expect c to be an integer.
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Python3 broke division!
or Fixed it, because in Python3 an integer divided by an integer
magically becomes a float. Remember that import future command? We
can use it to get Python3 division in Python2.
from __future__ import division
a = 3
b = 2
c = a/b
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Built in data types
Here are the built in data types for Python. Use
type(x)
to display the data type of x.
Type Example Description
int x=1 Integers (i.e., whole numbers)
float x = 1.0 Floating-point numbers (i.e., real numbers)
complex x = 1 + 2j Complex numbers
bool x = True Boolean: True/False values
str x = ’abc’ String: characters or text
NoneType x = None Special object indicating nulls
str(x) converts x to a string int(x) converts x to an integer float(x)
converts x to a floating point
Page 24 of A Whirlwind Tour of Python by VanderPlas.
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Comparison operators
Comparison operators will return a boolean
True
False
Operation Description
a == b a equal to b
a != b a not equal to b
a<b a less than b
a>b a greater than b
a <= b a less than or equal to b
a >= b a greater than or equal to b
Page 21 of A Whirlwind Tour of Python by VanderPlas.
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Floating point precision
0.1+0.2 == 0.3
this returns False! Why?
You can use the numpy isclose function to set a tolerance for floating
point comparison.
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Data Structures
Type Name Example Description
list [1, 2, 3] Ordered collection
tuple (1, 2, 3) Immutable ordered collection
dict {’a’:1, ’b’:2, ’c’:3} Unordered (key,value) mapping
set {1, 2, 3} Unordered collection of unique values
Page 30-31 of A Whirlwind Tour of Python by VanderPlas.
Mutable
Can be changed and modified
Immutable
Can not be changed or modified
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Lists are amazing
Lists
• basic ordered and mutable data collections
• Lists can be any shape and contain any data type
• you can have lists, floats, integers, tuple, dictionaries, sets in lists
• a float of 10.0 can be added to a list x by [Link](10.0)
• list x can be sorted by [Link]()
• the number of items in list x can be found with len(x)
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Pimp my list
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Listception
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An example list
x = [] # initialize an empty list
[Link](0.0) # append float 0.0 to x
[Link](1) # append integer 1 to x
[Link]([3,4,’hi’,(10,8)]) # append a list with a tuple to x
[Link]() # sort x from low to high
n = len(x) # count the number of items in list x
print(’There are ’,n,’ items in list x’)
print(x)
Note: [Link]() doesn’t work in this case with Python 3 since you would
need to compare different data types!!!
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List forward indexing - lists start at 0
x = [7, 77, 777, 7777]
The first item in the list can be called using
in : x[0]
out: 7
The second item of the list can be called using
in : x[1]
out: 77
The third item of the list can be called using
in : x[2]
out: 777
The last item of the list can be called using
in : x[3]
out: 7777
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List backward indexing - last index item in Python is -1
x = [7, 77, 777, 7777]
The last item in the list can be called using
in : x[-1]
out: 7777
The second to last item of the list can be called using
in : x[-2]
out: 777
The third to last item of the list can be called using
in : x[-3]
out: 77
The fourth to last item of the list can be called using
in : x[-4]
out: 7
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List slicing
x = [7, 77, 777, 7777]
List slicing is [startPoint : endPoint] where startPoint is inclusive and
endPoint is exclusive. In Mathematics would define define the interval as
[startPoint, endPoint).
If we wanted the first and second item in a list
in : x[0:2]
out: [7, 77]
So if we want the second through fourth item in list x
in : x[1:4]
out: [77, 777, 7777]
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Slicing with step size
x = [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,
10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,
16, 17, 18, 19] # creates a list of integers
We can slice with [startPoint:endPoint:stepSize], just like before, but now
stepSize is the step size of our slice.
in : x[Link]
out: [0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18]
in : x[Link]
out: [0, 5, 10, 15]
in : x[Link]
out: [1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19]
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Reverse the order of a list
Sometimes it is useful to reverse the order of a list. We can do this by
consider a backwards slice.
x = [7, 77, 777, 7777]
So to see the reverse order of x we would run
in : x[::-1]
out: [7777, 777, 77, 7]
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Creating lists with range (Python2 only)
Note: Python 3.5 changed how range works, range no longer creates
lists, it is an iterable. We won’t use range for numerical work, we’ll use a
numpy function instead.
Let’s use the range function to create lists of integers. How do we view
the docstring of range?
print(range.__doc__)
range(stop) − > list of integers range(start, stop[, step]) − > list of
integers
Return a list containing an arithmetic progression of integers. range(i, j)
returns [i, i+1, i+2, ..., j-1]; start (!) defaults to 0. When step is given,
it specifies the increment (or decrement). For example, range(4) returns
[0, 1, 2, 3]. The end point is omitted! These are exactly the valid indices
for a list of 4 elements.
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Tuples
Tuples are just like lists, except you define a tuple with parentheses
instead of square brackets. List indexing a slicing of Tuples works exactly
like lists, and you’ll use square brackets to call items of a tuple.
Tuples are immutable which means that once they are created they
can’t be modified in any way. I hardly ever use Tuples.
Let’s create a tuple of 2, 4, 6.
x = (2, 4, 6)
in : x[0]
out: 2
in : x[-1]
out: 6
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Dictionaries
Dictionaries map keys to values. There is no index with dictionaries,
instead there is a key. Dictionaries are sometimes used to pass
parameters into a function.
Let’s take a look at this param dictionary for the XGDBoost library as an
example dictionary. [Link]
python/python_intro.html
param = {’max_depth’:2, ’eta’:1, ’silent’:1,
’objective’:’binary:logistic’ }
param[’nthread’] = 4
param[’eval_metric’] = ’auc’
We don’t can add keys to the dictionary at any time! Let’s take a look at
param.
in : print(param)
out: {’silent’: 1, ’eval_metric’: ’auc’, ’nthread’: 4,
’eta’: 1, ’objective’: ’binary:logistic’, ’max_depth’: 2} 25
Dictionaries - param continued
Find values of keys with square brackets.
in : param[’objective’]
out: ’binary:logistic’
We can easily assign a new value for a key
in : param[’objective’] = ’reg:linear’
in : print(param[’objective’])
out: ’reg:linear’
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Sets
Sets are like lists and tuples, but are defined with curly brackets. Sets
obey mathmatical set definitions. VanderPlas provides a good example
on page 36-37. Which I’ll show here.
in : primes = {2, 3, 5, 7}; odds = {1, 3, 5, 7, 9}
in : [Link](odds) # union of primes and odds
out: {1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9}
in : [Link](odds) # intersection of primes and odds
out: {3, 5, 7}
in : [Link](odds) # items in primes but not odds
out: {2}
in : primes.symmetric_difference(odds) # items in just one set
out: {1, 2, 9}
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Membership operator
Operator Description
a is b True if a and b are identical objects
a is not b True if a and b are not identical objects
a in b True if a is a member of b
a not in b True if a is not a member of b
Page 23 of A Whirlwind Tour of Python by VanderPlas.
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If-then statements
Let’s take a look at a if, elif, and else statement in Python.
x = 9
if x < 0:
print(x,’ is a negative number’)
elif x > 0:
print(x,’ is a positive number’)
elif x == 0:
print(’Single’)
else:
print(x,’ makes me confused!’)
This obviously returns (9, ’ is a positive number’)
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If-then statements - notes
x = 9
if x < 0:
print(x,’ is a negative number’)
elif x > 0:
print(x,’ is a positive number’)
elif x == 0:
print(’Single’)
else:
print(x,’ makes me confused!’)
• in Python code blocks are denoted by indentation
• remember the emphasis on Python is to create highly readable code
• by forcing you to indent your code block
• the recommendation is that you use four spaces to denote an indent
• but you can also use tab
• indentations are preceded by a :
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Subsequent code blocks are also indented
x = 9
if x > 0:
print(x,’ is a greater than zero’)
if x > 5:
print(x,’ is a greater than five’)
if x > 10:
print(x,’ is greater than 10’)
# this is the continued x > 0 code block
print(’the date type of x is ’, type(x))
Note that this will print the type of x only when x > 0!
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tabs vs spaces
In a survey it was found that those who use spaces make more money
[Link]
developers-use-spaces-make-money-use-tabs/
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tabs vs spaces
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HW 01 - turn in one week from today in Canvas
Turn in the 5 questions as a single .py file onto canvas. Use comments to
clearly indicate which question you are working on. Your filename should
end as [Link] if you use Python2 and [Link] if you use Python3.
1. Name one difference between Python2 and Python3. Print your
answer as a string in Python.
2. You are given a list x = [0,1,2,3,4,5,6]. Print the third item in list x.
3. Assign y as the reversed order of list x. Print y.
4. Use list slicing to assign z [1,3,5] from x. Print z.
5. Your friend is new to Python. He is confused why his if statement
isn’t working, he has a number x and wants to print ’x is positive’ by
checking with an if statement. His code is following.
x = 99
if (x > 0) is True
print(’x is positive’)
This returns an ’invalid syntax error’. Copy this code into your .py
file, and correct the code.
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