Lecture 3 – Variables, Datatypes and

Operators in Python.

BBT 4211 - BCOM – Kurui Daniel

Content

• Good programming Practices

• Programming Errors
• Variables
• Data types
• Operators

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 Good Programming practices
• In programming, best practices are encouraged.
• This is to enable easy understanding, maintaining and debugging
of code.
• Think of a newly appointed s/w developer in a company

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 Good Programming practices cont’d
• Use consistent indentation
Indentation is very important in python. It is part of its syntax. The best style, is a
consistent style. Once you start competing in large projects you’ll immediately
understand the importance of consistent code styling.

• Follow the DRY Principle

DRY stands for “Don’t Repeat Yourself.
The same piece of code should not be repeated over and over again.

• Avoid Deep Nesting

Too many levels of nesting can make code harder to read and follow.
For example:

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Good Programming practices cont’d

Can be
written as

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Good Programming practices cont’d

• Limit line length

Long lines are hard to read. It is a good practice to avoid writing
horizontally long lines of code.
• File and folder structure
You should avoid writing all of your code in one of 1-2 files. That won’t
break your app but it would be a nightmare to read, debug and maintain
your application later.
Keeping a clean folder structure will make the code a lot more readable
and maintainable.

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Good Programming practices cont’d

• Naming conventions
Use of proper naming conventions is a well known best practice. Is a very
common issue where developers use variables like X1, Y1 and forget to
replace them with meaningful ones, causing confusion and making the
code less readable.
• Keep the code simple
The code should always be simple. Complicated logic for achieving simple
tasks is something you want to avoid as the logic one programmer
implemented a requirement may not make perfect sense to another. So,
always keep the code as simple as possible.

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Good Programming practices cont’d

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Debugging in Programming

• Debugging is the routine process of locating and removing

computer program bugs, errors or abnormalities, which is methodically
handled by software programmers via debugging tools.
• Debugging checks, detects and corrects errors or bugs to allow
proper program operation according to set specifications.

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Types of errors in python
• Errors in Python can be categorized into two types:
1. Compiler Errors
• These are errors that occur when you ask Python to run the application.
Before the program can be run, the source code must be compiled into the
machine code. If the conversion can not performed, Python will inform you
that your application can not be run before the error is fixed.
• The most common errors of this type are syntax errors – for example, if
you don’t end an if statement with the colon. Here is an example:

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Types of errors in python cont’d
2. Runtime Errors
• There are errors that occur after the code has been compiled and the
program is running. The error of this type will cause your program to
behave unexpectedly or even crash. An example of an runtime error is the
division by zero. Consider the following example:

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Types of errors in python cont’d
2. Runtime Errors

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Variables
What is a variable?
• In programming, variables are storage locations that are used to store
information that can later be referenced and manipulated.
• You can consider a variable as a sort of a container where you store an
information that can later be accessed with the variable name.
• In Python, variables are created when they are first assigned values. Values
are assigned using the assignment operator (=). For example, to create a
variable named x and store the numeric value of 3 in it, you can use the
following command:
• x = 12
• Name = “Daniel”

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Variables Cont’d
• You can now use the variable Name in your code. For example,
to print the content of the variable, you can use the following
command:
• print(Name)
• print(x)

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 Data types in Python

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Variable Data types

What is a variable data type?

• Variables in Python can be of a different data types.
• The data type of a variable is important because it specifies the type or
kind of information that can be stored inside a variable.
• For example, to store series of characters, i.e. string information, you need
a variable of the string type. You can’t store a number in a variable
designed to store string information. You will need to create a variable of
the numerical type to store a numerical value.

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Variable Data types cont’d

• There are five standard data types in Python:

1. Numbers
used to store numeric values. Numbers can be stored as integers, long
integers, floating-point values, and complex numbers. For example, the
statement x = 5 will store the integer number 5 in the variable x.
2. Strings
used to store a contiguous set of characters. To define a string, you type the
characters within single or double quotes. For example,
myString = ‘This is some text’
will store that string of characters (This is some text) in the variable myString.

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Variable Data types cont’d
3. Lists
• Lists are similar to arrays in some other programming languages, lists in
Python are used to store a set of elements under a single variable name.
• Each element can be accesses by using its index, which is simply an
address that identifies the item’s place in the list.
• Elements of a list are defined inside the square brackets ([]) and are
separated by commas. For example:
• myNumbers = [5,3,2,1]
• This will define the list myNumbers with four elements. To access the first
element of the list (the number 5), we can specify its index in the square
brackets. Since indexes start from 0, to access the first element of the list,
we would use the following statement:
• myNumbers[0]

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Variable Data types cont’d

4. Tuples
• Tuples are similar to lists, tuples in Python are used to store a set of
elements under a single variable name.
• However, unlike lists, they cannot be changed once created. You can think
of tuples as read-only lists.
• They are used to represent fixed collections of elements, like days in the
week. Elements of a tuple are defined inside the parentheses and
separated by commas. For example,
• myNumbers = (2,4,2,5)
• To access the first element, we use the myNumbers[0] statement.

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Variable Data types cont’d

5. Dictionaries
• Dictionaries are also known as mappings
• They are used to store a set of objects, but they store objects by key instead by
relative position.
• The elements are defined within the curly braces.
• For example, the statement
• myDict = {‘color’ : ‘blue’, ‘size’ : ‘small’}
• This will create a two word dictionary. We can access the elements of this
dictionary by specifying a key.
• To access the value associated with the key color, we would use the following
statement:
• myDict[‘color’].

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Date and Time

• There are times you might need to get the current data and time
• For example if you are calculating age of something, audit purposes etc
• To get the current date and time in python, we do the following :

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 Operators in Python

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Arithmetic Operators

• The arithmetic operators in Python are used to perform math operations,

such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
• Python also offers a number of libraries that enable you to perform more
complex math tasks.

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Arithmetic Operators Cont’d
• Here is a list of the arithmetic operators in Python:
• Addition (+) – adds two values together.
• Subtraction (-) – subtracts right hand operand from the left hand
operand.
• Multiplication (*) – multiplies the right operand by the left operand.
• Division (/) – divides the left operand by the right operand
• Modulus (%) – divides the left operand by the right operand and returns
the remainder. Example: 9 % 5 = 4.
• Exponent (**) – calculates the exponential value. Example: 3 ** 4 = 81.
• Floor Division (//) – performs integer division. Example: 9//2 = 4.

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 Comparison Operators
• As the name suggests, the comparison operators in Python are
used to compare one value to another.
• The result of a comparison is a Boolean value, which can be
either True or False.

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 Comparison Operators
• The following comparison operators exist in Python:
==
determines whether two values are equal.
Examples: 1 == 1 is True, 1 == 2 is False.

!=
determines whether two values are not equal.
Examples: 1 != 2 returns True, 1 != 1 returns False.

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 Comparison Operators
>
determines if the value of the left operand is greater than the
value of the right operand.
Examples: 3 > 1 is True, 1 > 2 is False.

<
determines if the value of the left operand is less than the value of
the right operand.
Examples: 1 < 2 is True, 3 < 2 is False.

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 Comparison Operators
>=
determines if the value of the left operand is greater than or equal
to the value of the right operand.
Examples: 3 >= 1 is True, 1 >= 2 is False.
<=
determines if the value of the left operand is less than or equal to
the value of the right operand.
Examples: 1 <= 3 is True, 3 <= 2 is False.

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 Comparison Operators
>=
determines if the value of the left operand is greater than or equal
to the value of the right operand.
Examples: 3 >= 1 is True, 1 >= 2 is False.
<=
determines if the value of the left operand is less than or equal to
the value of the right operand.
Examples: 1 <= 3 is True, 3 <= 2 is False.

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Logical Operators

• The logical operators in Python are used to combine

the true or false values of variables (or expressions) so you can figure out
their resultant truth value.
• Three logical operators are available in Python:
AND OR NOT

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Logical Operators cont’d

• AND
Returns True only if both operands are true. In any other
case, False will be returned.
• OR
Returns True when one or both of the operands are true.
• NOT
Negates the truth value of a single operand.

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Logical Operators cont’d

• AND
Returns True only if both operands are true. In any other
case, False will be returned.
• OR
Returns True when one or both of the operands are true.
• NOT
Negates the truth value of a single operand.

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AND Operator’s truth table

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OR Operator’s truth table

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Assignment Operators
• The assignment operators in Python are used to store data into a variable.
We’ve already used the most common assingment operator (=), but there are
many more of them:
=
Assigns the value found in the right operands to the left operand.
Example: x = 5.

+=
Adds the value found in the right operand to the value found in the left operand.
Example: x = 5, x += 3 results in x = 8.
x = x+3

-=
Subtracts the value of the right operand from the value found in the left operand.
Example: x = 5, x -= 3 results in x = 2.

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Assignment Operators Cont’d
*=
Multiplies the value of the right operand by the value of the left operand.
Example: x = 5, x *= 3 results in x = 15.
x = x*3

/=
Divides the value of the left operand by the value of the right operand.
Example: x = 5, x /=3 results in x = 1.667.
x = x/3

%=
Divides the value found in the left operand by the value found in the right
operand. The reminder will be placed in the left operand.
Example: x = 5, x %=3 results in x = 2.

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Assignment Operators Cont’d
**=
Determines the exponential value found in the left operand when raised
to the power of the value in the right operand.
Example: x = 5, x **=3 results in x = 125.

//=
Divides the value found in the left operand by the value of the right
operand. The integer result will be placed in the left operand.
Example: x = 5, x //= 3 results in x = 1.

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Membership operators
• The membership operators in Python are used to test whether a
value is found within a sequence.
• For example, you can use the membership operators to test for the
presence of a substring in a string. Two membership operators exist in
Python: in and not in

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Membership operators cont’d
in
Evaluates to True if the value in the left operand appears in the sequence
found in the right operand.
For example, ‘Hello’ in ‘Hello world’ returns True because the
substring Hello is present in the string Hello world!.

not in
Evaluates to True if the value in the left operand doesn’t appear in the
sequence found in the right operand.
For example, ‘house’ not in ‘Hello world’ returns True because the
substring house is not present in the string Hello world!.

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Membership operators cont’d

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Identity Operators
• The identity operators in Python are used to determine whether a value
is of a certain class or type.
• They are usually used to determine the type of data a certain variable
contains.
• For example, you can combine the identity operators with the built-
in type() function to ensure that you are working with the specific
variable type. value.

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Identity Operators
• Two identity operators are available in Python:

• is
Returns True if the type of the value in the right operand points to the same
type in the left operand.
For example, type(3) is int evaluates to True because 3 is indeed an integer
number.

• is not
Returns True if the type of the value in the right operand points to a
different type than the value in the left operand.
For example, type(3) is not float evaluates to True because 3 is not a
floating-point value.

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Identity Operators cont’d

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Lab Exercise
1. Write a program which prompts the user for a Celsius temperature,
convert the temperature to Fahrenheit, and print out the converted
temperature. ((0°C × 9/5) + 32 = 32°F)
2. Write a python program to declare a variable called ‘name’ to hold your
name. and test if it has some string you will be prompted to enter using
input
3. Write a python program to calculate your age
4. Write a program to prompt the user for hours and rate per hour to compute
gross pay.
Enter Hours: 35
Enter Rate: 2.75
Pay: 96.25
5. Write a python program to enter any English word, the test if it is a
doing word i.e. verb (has ing)

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END
Any Questions?
Thank you!
BBT 4211 - Comp Programming - Kurui Daniel