1.2.2. Basic types

1.2.2.1. Numerical types

Python supports the following numerical, scalar types:

Integer:
>>> 1 + 1

2

>>> a = 4

>>> type(a)   

<type 'int'>
Floats:
>>> c = 2.1

>>> type(c)   

<type 'float'>
Complex:
>>> a = 1.5 + 0.5j

>>> a.real

1.5

>>> a.imag

0.5

>>> type(1. + 0j)   

<type 'complex'>
Booleans:
>>> 3 > 4

False

>>> test = (3 > 4)

>>> test

False

>>> type(test)      

<type 'bool'>

A Python shell can therefore replace your pocket calculator, with the basic arithmetic operations +, -, *, /, % (modulo) natively implemented

>>> 7 * 3.

21.0

>>> 2**10

1024

>>> 8 % 3

2

Type conversion (casting):

>>> float(1)

1.0

Warning

Integer division

In Python 2:

>>> 3 / 2   

1

In Python 3:

>>> 3 / 2   

1.5

To be safe: use floats:

>>> 3 / 2.

1.5



>>> a = 3

>>> b = 2

>>> a / b # In Python 2  

1

>>> a / float(b)

1.5

Future behavior: to always get the behavior of Python3

>>> from __future__ import division  

>>> 3 / 2  

1.5

If you explicitly want integer division use //:

>>> 3.0 // 2

1.0

The behaviour of the division operator has changed in Python 3.

1.2.2.2. Containers

Python provides many efficient types of containers, in which collections of objects can be stored.

1.2.2.2.1. Lists

A list is an ordered collection of objects, that may have different types. For example:

>>> colors = ['red', 'blue', 'green', 'black', 'white']

>>> type(colors)     

<type 'list'>

Indexing: accessing individual objects contained in the list:

>>> colors[2]

'green'

Counting from the end with negative indices:

>>> colors[-1]

'white'

>>> colors[-2]

'black'

Warning

Indexing starts at 0 (as in C), not at 1 (as in Fortran or Matlab)!

Slicing: obtaining sublists of regularly-spaced elements:

>>> colors

['red', 'blue', 'green', 'black', 'white']

>>> colors[2:4]

['green', 'black']

Warning

Note that colors[start:stop] contains the elements with indices i such as start<= i < stop (i ranging from start to stop-1). Therefore, colors[start:stop] has (stop - start) elements.

Slicing syntax: colors[start:stop:stride]

All slicing parameters are optional:

>>> colors

['red', 'blue', 'green', 'black', 'white']

>>> colors[3:]

['black', 'white']

>>> colors[:3]

['red', 'blue', 'green']

>>> colors[::2]

['red', 'green', 'white']

Lists are mutable objects and can be modified:

>>> colors[0] = 'yellow'

>>> colors

['yellow', 'blue', 'green', 'black', 'white']

>>> colors[2:4] = ['gray', 'purple']

>>> colors

['yellow', 'blue', 'gray', 'purple', 'white']

Note

The elements of a list may have different types:

>>> colors = [3, -200, 'hello']

>>> colors

[3, -200, 'hello']

>>> colors[1], colors[2]

(-200, 'hello')

For collections of numerical data that all have the same type, it is often more efficient to use the array type provided by the numpy module. A NumPy array is a chunk of memory containing fixed-sized items. With NumPy arrays, operations on elements can be faster because elements are regularly spaced in memory and more operations are performed through specialized C functions instead of Python loops.

Python offers a large panel of functions to modify lists, or query them. Here are a few examples; for more details, see https://docs.python.org/tutorial/datastructures.html#more-on-lists

Add and remove elements:

>>> colors = ['red', 'blue', 'green', 'black', 'white']

>>> colors.append('pink')

>>> colors

['red', 'blue', 'green', 'black', 'white', 'pink']

>>> colors.pop() # removes and returns the last item

'pink'

>>> colors

['red', 'blue', 'green', 'black', 'white']

>>> colors.extend(['pink', 'purple']) # extend colors, in-place

>>> colors

['red', 'blue', 'green', 'black', 'white', 'pink', 'purple']

>>> colors = colors[:-2]

>>> colors

['red', 'blue', 'green', 'black', 'white']

Reverse:

>>> rcolors = colors[::-1]

>>> rcolors

['white', 'black', 'green', 'blue', 'red']

>>> rcolors2 = list(colors)

>>> rcolors2

['red', 'blue', 'green', 'black', 'white']

>>> rcolors2.reverse() # in-place

>>> rcolors2

['white', 'black', 'green', 'blue', 'red']

Concatenate and repeat lists:

>>> rcolors + colors

['white', 'black', 'green', 'blue', 'red', 'red', 'blue', 'green', 'black', 'white']

>>> rcolors * 2

['white', 'black', 'green', 'blue', 'red', 'white', 'black', 'green', 'blue', 'red']

Sort:

>>> sorted(rcolors) # new object

['black', 'blue', 'green', 'red', 'white']

>>> rcolors

['white', 'black', 'green', 'blue', 'red']

>>> rcolors.sort()  # in-place

>>> rcolors

['black', 'blue', 'green', 'red', 'white']

Methods and Object-Oriented Programming

The notation rcolors.method() (e.g. rcolors.append(3) and colors.pop()) is our first example of object-oriented programming (OOP). Being a list, the object rcolors owns the method function that is called using the notation .. No further knowledge of OOP than understanding the notation . is necessary for going through this tutorial.

Discovering methods:

Reminder: in Ipython: tab-completion (press tab)

In [28]: rcolors.<TAB>

rcolors.__add__           rcolors.__iadd__          rcolors.__setattr__

rcolors.__class__         rcolors.__imul__          rcolors.__setitem__

rcolors.__contains__      rcolors.__init__          rcolors.__setslice__

rcolors.__delattr__       rcolors.__iter__          rcolors.__sizeof__

rcolors.__delitem__       rcolors.__le__            rcolors.__str__

rcolors.__delslice__      rcolors.__len__           rcolors.__subclasshook__

rcolors.__doc__           rcolors.__lt__            rcolors.append

rcolors.__eq__            rcolors.__mul__           rcolors.count

rcolors.__format__        rcolors.__ne__            rcolors.extend

rcolors.__ge__            rcolors.__new__           rcolors.index

rcolors.__getattribute__  rcolors.__reduce__        rcolors.insert

rcolors.__getitem__       rcolors.__reduce_ex__     rcolors.pop

rcolors.__getslice__      rcolors.__repr__          rcolors.remove

rcolors.__gt__            rcolors.__reversed__      rcolors.reverse

rcolors.__hash__          rcolors.__rmul__          rcolors.sort

1.2.2.2.2. Strings

Different string syntaxes (simple, double or triple quotes):

s = 'Hello, how are you?'

s = "Hi, what's up"

s = '''Hello,                 # tripling the quotes allows the

       how are you'''         # the string to span more than one line

s = """Hi,

what's up?"""

In [1]: 'Hi, what's up?'

------------------------------------------------------------

   File "<ipython console>", line 1

    'Hi, what's up?'

           ^

SyntaxError: invalid syntax

The newline character is \n, and the tab character is \t.

Strings are collections like lists. Hence they can be indexed and sliced, using the same syntax and rules.

Indexing:

>>> a = "hello"

>>> a[0]

'h'

>>> a[1]

'e'

>>> a[-1]

'o'

(Remember that negative indices correspond to counting from the right end.)

Slicing:

>>> a = "hello, world!"

>>> a[3:6] # 3rd to 6th (excluded) elements: elements 3, 4, 5

'lo,'

>>> a[2:10:2] # Syntax: a[start:stop:step]

'lo o'

>>> a[::3] # every three characters, from beginning to end

'hl r!'

Accents and special characters can also be handled in Unicode strings (see https://docs.python.org/tutorial/introduction.html#unicode-strings).

A string is an immutable object and it is not possible to modify its contents. One may however create new strings from the original one.

In [53]: a = "hello, world!"

In [54]: a[2] = 'z'

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Traceback (most recent call last):

   File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>

TypeError: 'str' object does not support item assignment



In [55]: a.replace('l', 'z', 1)

Out[55]: 'hezlo, world!'

In [56]: a.replace('l', 'z')

Out[56]: 'hezzo, worzd!'

Strings have many useful methods, such as a.replace as seen above. Remember the a. object-oriented notation and use tab completion or help(str) to search for new methods.

See also

Python offers advanced possibilities for manipulating strings, looking for patterns or formatting. The interested reader is referred to https://docs.python.org/library/stdtypes.html#string-methods and https://docs.python.org/library/string.html#new-string-formatting

String formatting:

>>> 'An integer: %i; a float: %f; another string: %s' % (1, 0.1, 'string')

'An integer: 1; a float: 0.100000; another string: string'



>>> i = 102

>>> filename = 'processing_of_dataset_%d.txt' % i

>>> filename

'processing_of_dataset_102.txt'

1.2.2.2.3. Dictionaries

A dictionary is basically an efficient table that maps keys to values. It is an unordered container

>>> tel = {'emmanuelle': 5752, 'sebastian': 5578}

>>> tel['francis'] = 5915

>>> tel     

{'sebastian': 5578, 'francis': 5915, 'emmanuelle': 5752}

>>> tel['sebastian']

5578

>>> tel.keys()   

['sebastian', 'francis', 'emmanuelle']

>>> tel.values()   

[5578, 5915, 5752]

>>> 'francis' in tel

True

It can be used to conveniently store and retrieve values associated with a name (a string for a date, a name, etc.). See https://docs.python.org/tutorial/datastructures.html#dictionaries for more information.

A dictionary can have keys (resp. values) with different types:

>>> d = {'a':1, 'b':2, 3:'hello'}

>>> d       

{'a': 1, 3: 'hello', 'b': 2}

1.2.2.2.4. More container types

Tuples

Tuples are basically immutable lists. The elements of a tuple are written between parentheses, or just separated by commas:

>>> t = 12345, 54321, 'hello!'

>>> t[0]

12345

>>> t

(12345, 54321, 'hello!')

>>> u = (0, 2)

Sets: unordered, unique items:

>>> s = set(('a', 'b', 'c', 'a'))

>>> s    

set(['a', 'c', 'b'])

>>> s.difference(('a', 'b'))    

set(['c'])

1.2.2.3. Assignment operator

Python library reference says:

Assignment statements are used to (re)bind names to values and to modify attributes or items of mutable objects.

In short, it works as follows (simple assignment):

  1. an expression on the right hand side is evaluated, the corresponding object is created/obtained
  2. a name on the left hand side is assigned, or bound, to the r.h.s. object

Things to note:

  • a single object can have several names bound to it:

    In [1]: a = [1, 2, 3]

    In [2]: b = a

    In [3]: a

    Out[3]: [1, 2, 3]

    In [4]: b

    Out[4]: [1, 2, 3]

    In [5]: a is b

    Out[5]: True

    In [6]: b[1] = 'hi!'

    In [7]: a

    Out[7]: [1, 'hi!', 3]

  • to change a list in place, use indexing/slices:

    In [1]: a = [1, 2, 3]

    In [3]: a

    Out[3]: [1, 2, 3]

    In [4]: a = ['a', 'b', 'c'] # Creates another object.

    In [5]: a

    Out[5]: ['a', 'b', 'c']

    In [6]: id(a)

    Out[6]: 138641676

    In [7]: a[:] = [1, 2, 3] # Modifies object in place.

    In [8]: a

    Out[8]: [1, 2, 3]

    In [9]: id(a)

    Out[9]: 138641676 # Same as in Out[6], yours will differ...

  • the key concept here is mutable vs. immutable

    • mutable objects can be changed in place
    • immutable objects cannot be modified once created

See also

A very good and detailed explanation of the above issues can be found in David M. Beazley’s article Types and Objects in Python.