This notebook is a collection of Python notes, tricks, and tips. It is set up to act as a quick reference for basic Python programming. I try to update the post every once in a while with the latest version of Python, so it should be roughly up to date.
Table of Contents
Basic Math
Most basic
print(5+5)
print(4-3)
print(2*2)
print(7/3)
print(7//3)
10
1
4
2.3333333333333335
2
Note that the division sign, “/”, is used differently in Python 2 and 3. In Python 2, 5/2 is 2. In Python 3, 5 / 2 is 2.5, and 5 // 2 is 2.
Exponentiation
print(2**3)
8
Modulo
print(7%3)
1
Strings
Concatenating
a='ab'
c='cd'
print("The easiest way is this: " + a + c)
print("You can also multiply a string by an int to make it repeat: {}".format(3*a))
try:
a-'a'
except TypeError:
print('But you cannot do the same with subtraction or division')
The easiest way is this: abcd
You can also multiply a string by an int to make it repeat: ababab
But you cannot do the same with subtraction or division
Appending
s=[]
s.append(a)
s.append(c)
print(s)
st = ''.join(s)
print(st)
['ab', 'cd']
abcd
Removing and changing letters
#String are immutable, so you will have to create a new string each time
old_str = 'Python sucks'
new_str = old_str.replace('su', 'ro')
print(new_str)
Python rocks
Finding a string inside a string
phrase = 'Now for ourself and for this time of meeting'
if 'meeting' in phrase:
print('found "meeting"')
found "meeting"
# Or find the location of the beginning of the string
phrase.find('for')
4
# Index does the same thing when a string is present
phrase.index('for')
4
# When the string isn't there, they differ
phrase.find('fort')
-1
try:
phrase.index('fort')
except ValueError as e:
print(e)
substring not found
# Find and index the first instance. You can also search for the last instance
phrase.rfind('for')
20
Splitting and joining strings
sen = 'This is my sentence'
# Split into words
words = sen.split(' ')
print(words)
['This', 'is', 'my', 'sentence']
# Join does the opposite of split
another = ['This', 'is', 'another', 'sentence']
' '.join(another)
'This is another sentence'
Unique words
# The "set" function does this
# Note that we'll have to convert to all lower case beforehand so it doesn't think "this" and "This" are different words
lower = [w.lower() for w in words]
unique_words = set(lower)
print(unique_words)
print("You have used {} unique words.".format(len(unique_words)))
{'is', 'sentence', 'my', 'this'}
You have used 4 unique words.
Extract longer words from a sentence
# Extract the words longer than three letters
[w for w in words if len(w) > 3]
['This', 'sentence']
Capitalization
# Find capitalized words
print([w for w in words if w.istitle()]) # istitle looks to see if first and only first character is capitalized
['This']
# Note that isupper checks if ALL the letters are uppercase
print('This'.isupper())
print('This'.istitle())
print('UPPER'.isupper())
False
True
True
print('Great'.lower())
print('great'.title())
print('Great'.upper())
great
Great
GREAT
More string methods
# Words that end with "y"
[w for w in words if w.endswith('y')]
['my']
a = 'too many spaces at the end '
a.strip()
'too many spaces at the end'
Lists
# Lists are defined using square brackets
a = [1,2,3,4]
type(a)
list
# Lists can consistent of different types, but this isn't common
a = ['This', 'is', 4, 1+4, 's'*3]
print(a)
['This', 'is', 4, 5, 'sss']
Indexing
# The first item has an index of 0
print(a[0])
# And the last has an index of one less than the number of element
print(a[len(a)-1])
This
sss
Slicing
List slicing is done by [start : end]
The first value is included, but the last one isn’t, so it looks like [inclusive : exclusive].
# list slicing: [start : end] is [inclusive : exclusive], so the last value is the slice is not included
a[1:3]
['is', 4]
# Lists also include steps: [start : end :step]
a[0:len(a):2]
['This', 4, 'sss']
# If you leave them blank, the slicing values will be implied as follows
print(a[0:len(a):1])
print(a[::])
['This', 'is', 4, 5, 'sss']
['This', 'is', 4, 5, 'sss']
# So you can just enter the part you want to be different than the defaults
print(a[::2])
print(a[:3])
print(a[:4:2])
['This', 4, 'sss']
['This', 'is', 4]
['This', 4]
# The end value can be more than the length of the list
a[2:10]
[4, 5, 'sss']
Other list stuff
# Lists are mutable
a[2] = 'hello'
print(a)
['This', 'is', 'hello', 5, 'sss']
# You can also have lists of lists
list_of_lists= [[1,2,3,4,5], ['a','b','c'], a]
print(list_of_lists)
[[1, 2, 3, 4, 5], ['a', 'b', 'c'], ['This', 'is', 'hello', 5, 'sss']]
Tuples
# Tuples are defined using parentheses
tu = (1, 2, 3)
#tuple are immutable, so the following will give you an error:
try:
tu[2] = 5
except TypeError as e:
print(e)
'tuple' object does not support item assignment
# Use tuples to flip values
a=1
b=2
(b,a) = (a,b)
print("a is {a} and b is {b}".format(a=a,b=b))
a is 2 and b is 1
Finding a value in a tuple
tu.index(3)
2
Dictionaries
Dictionaries are implementations of hash tables. They are very quick for looking up, inserting, updating, and deleting values
# Dictionaries are defined with curly brackets
# Instead of using indexes, uses key-value pairs
entries = {'Alice' : True, 'Bob' : 0, 'Charlie' : 12}
print(entries['Charlie'])
12
Adding values
# First, check if it is already there
print('New' in entries)
False
entries['New'] = 'yes'
Exploring dictionaries
print(entries.keys())
print(entries.values())
dict_keys(['Alice', 'Bob', 'Charlie', 'New'])
dict_values([True, 0, 12, 'yes'])
Printing
print("Hello world!")
Hello world!
#printing multiple lines
lines = """Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar."""
print(lines)
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar.
# If you use a comma in the print statement you get an extra space
a = 'Et tu, Brute!'
b = 'Then fall, Caesar.'
print(a + b)
print(a, b)
Et tu, Brute!Then fall, Caesar.
Et tu, Brute! Then fall, Caesar.
# You can print with single or double quotes. This makes it easier to print a single or double quote
print('Antony said "This was the most unkindest cut of all."')
print("For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,\n Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms")
Antony said "This was the most unkindest cut of all."
For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms
Using the format printing method
print('{:.2f}'.format(3.1415))
print('{:.2%}'.format(.333))
print("{perc:.2%}% of {num_verbs} are weak".format(perc=.501, num_verbs=7))
3.14
33.30%
50.10%% of 7 are weak
f-strings
You can also use f-strings, which are an even faster way of using the functionality of format.
perc=.501
num_verbs=7
print(f"{perc:.2%}% of {num_verbs} are weak")
50.10%% of 7 are weak
For-loops
for i in range(10):
print(i**2)
0
1
4
9
16
25
36
49
64
81
# Also works with text
for word in ['Beware', 'the', 'ides', 'of', 'March']:
print(word)
Beware
the
ides
of
March
Note that you can end a for-loop with an else statement. This might seem a little strange, but you can think of “else” acting as a “then” in this situation. If the loop successfully completes, the else statement will run. But if there’s a break in the loop, it doesn’t.
for i in [0, 3, 5]:
print(i*i)
else:
print("Print if loop completes")
for i in [0, 3, 5]:
print(i*i)
if i > 2:
break
else:
print("Won't print if there's a break")
0
9
25
Print if loop completes
0
9
List Comprehensions
List comprehensions are an alternative to for-loops. Every list comprehension can be rewritten as a for-loop, but not every for-loop can be written as a list comprehension.
numbers = [1,2,3,4,5]
small_numbers = []
for number in numbers:
if number < 5:
small_numbers.append(2*number)
print(small_numbers)
[2, 4, 6, 8]
# This can be rewritten as a list comprehension
small_numbers = [2*number for number in numbers if number < 5]
print(small_numbers)
[2, 4, 6, 8]
Check out this excellent visualization of the relationship between for-loop and list comprehensions to see how they relate.
Conditional List Comprehensions
When there’s only an if, you can do this:
[2*number for number in numbers if number < 5]
[2, 4, 6, 8]
But if you want to add an else statement, you can’t just add it after the if statement like so:
try:
[2*number for number in numbers if number < 5 else 0]
except SyntaxError as err:
print(err)
File "C:\Users\Julius\AppData\Local\Temp/ipykernel_15528/3025308397.py", line 2
[2*number for number in numbers if number < 5 else 0]
^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
Instead, you have to move the if and else statements near the beginning, like so:
[2*number if number < 5 else number**2 for number in numbers]
[2, 4, 6, 8, 25]
I find this a bit odd because if you have the if statement there WITHOUT the else, it raises an error:
[2*number if number < 5 for number in numbers]
File "C:\Users\Julius\AppData\Local\Temp/ipykernel_15528/2907721880.py", line 1
[2*number if number < 5 for number in numbers]
^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax