Introduction to Python programming

Introduction to Python Programming is written for students who are beginners in the field of computer programming. This book presents an intuitive approach to the concepts of Python Programming for students. This book differs from traditional texts not only in its philosophy but also in its overall focus, level of activities, development of topics, and attention to programming details. The contents of the book are chosen with utmost care after analyzing the syllabus for Python course prescribed by various top universities in USA, Europe, and Asia. Since the prerequisite know-how varies significantly from student to student, the book’s overall overture addresses the challenges of teaching and learning of students which is fine-tuned by the authors’ experience with large sections of students. This book uses natural language expressions instead of the traditional shortened words of the programming world. This book has been written with the goal to provide students with a textbook that can be easily understood and to make a connection between what students are learning and how they may apply that knowledge. Features of this book This book does not assume any previous programming experience, although of course, any exposure to other programming languages is useful This book introduces all of the key concepts of Python programming language with helpful illustrations Programming examples are presented in a clear and consistent manner Each line of code is numbered and explained in detail Use of f-strings throughout the book Hundreds of real-world examples are included and they come from fields such as entertainment, sports, music and environmental studies Students can periodically check their progress with in-chapter quizzes that appear in all chapters Cover......Page 1 Half Title......Page 2 Title Page......Page 4 Copyright Page......Page 5 Dedication......Page 6 Table of Contents......Page 8 Preface......Page 14 Acknowledgment......Page 18 Authors......Page 20 1.1 What Is a Program?......Page 22 1.2.1 Machine Language......Page 23 1.2.3 High-Level Language......Page 24 1.3 Software Development......Page 26 1.4 History of Python Programming Language......Page 28 1.5 Thrust Areas of Python......Page 29 1.5.1 Academia......Page 30 1.5.5 Data Analysis......Page 31 1.5.10 Cloud Computing......Page 32 1.5.14 Python Stack in Industry......Page 33 1.6 Installing Anaconda Python Distribution......Page 34 1.7 Installing PyCharm IDE to Set Up a Python Development Environment......Page 37 1.8 Creating and Running Your First Python Project......Page 40 1.9 Installing and Using Jupyter Notebook......Page 44 1.9.1 Starting Jupyter Notebook......Page 45 1.10 Open Source Software......Page 48 1.10.1 Why Do People Prefer Using Open Source Software?......Page 49 1.10.3 Open Source Licenses......Page 50 Multiple Choice Questions......Page 53 Review Questions......Page 55 2.1 Identifiers......Page 56 2.3 Statements and Expressions......Page 57 2.4.2 Assigning Values to Variables......Page 58 2.5 Operators......Page 59 2.5.1 Arithmetic Operators......Page 60 2.5.2 Assignment Operators......Page 61 2.5.3 Comparison Operators......Page 63 2.5.4 Logical Operators......Page 64 2.5.5 Bitwise Operators......Page 65 2.6 Precedence and Associativity......Page 68 2.7.3 Strings......Page 69 2.8 Indentation......Page 70 2.10 Reading Input......Page 71 2.11.1 str.format() Method......Page 72 2.11.2 f-strings......Page 74 2.12.1 The int() Function......Page 75 2.12.3 The str() Function......Page 76 2.12.5 The complex() Function......Page 77 2.12.8 The oct() Function......Page 78 2.14 Dynamic and Strongly Typed Language......Page 79 2.15 Summary......Page 80 Multiple Choice Questions......Page 81 Review Questions......Page 86 3: Control Flow Statements......Page 88 3.1 The if Decision Control Flow Statement......Page 89 3.2 The if...else Decision Control Flow Statement......Page 90 3.3 The if...elif...else Decision Control Statement......Page 92 3.4 Nested if Statement......Page 94 3.5 The while Loop......Page 95 3.6 The for Loop......Page 100 3.7 The continue and break Statements......Page 102 3.8.2 Exceptions......Page 105 3.8.3 Exception Handling Using try...except...finally......Page 106 3.9 Summary......Page 110 Multiple Choice Questions......Page 111 Review Questions......Page 114 4.1 Built-In Functions......Page 116 4.2 Commonly Used Modules......Page 118 4.3 Function Definition and Calling the Function......Page 120 4.4 The return Statement and void Function......Page 124 4.5 Scope and Lifetime of Variables......Page 127 4.6 Default Parameters......Page 129 4.7 Keyword Arguments......Page 130 4.8 *args and **kwargs......Page 131 4.9 Command Line Arguments......Page 133 Multiple Choice Questions......Page 134 Review Questions......Page 138 5.1 Creating and Storing Strings......Page 140 5.2 Basic String Operations......Page 141 5.2.2 Built-In Functions Used on Strings......Page 143 5.3 Accessing Characters in String by Index Number......Page 144 5.4 String Slicing and Joining......Page 145 5.4.1 Specifying Steps in Slice Operation......Page 147 5.4.3 Split Strings Using split() Method......Page 148 5.4.5 String Traversing......Page 149 5.5 String Methods......Page 152 5.6 Formatting Strings......Page 159 5.6.1 Format Specifiers......Page 161 5.6.2 Escape Sequences......Page 162 5.6.4 Unicodes......Page 163 Multiple Choice Questions......Page 164 Review Questions......Page 167 6.1 Creating Lists......Page 170 6.2.1 The list() Function......Page 172 6.3 Indexing and Slicing in Lists......Page 173 6.3.1 Modifying Items in Lists......Page 174 6.4 Built-In Functions Used on Lists......Page 176 6.5 List Methods......Page 177 6.5.1 Populating Lists with Items......Page 179 6.5.2 Traversing of Lists......Page 180 6.5.3 Nested Lists......Page 188 6.6 The del Statement......Page 190 Multiple-Choice Questions......Page 191 Review Questions......Page 194 7.1 Creating Dictionary......Page 196 7.2 Accessing and Modifying key:value Pairs in Dictionaries......Page 199 7.3 Built-In Functions Used on Dictionaries......Page 200 7.4 Dictionary Methods......Page 202 7.4.1 Populating Dictionaries with key:value Pairs......Page 204 7.4.2 Traversing of Dictionary......Page 206 Multiple Choice Questions......Page 214 Review Questions......Page 219 8.1 Creating Tuples......Page 222 8.2 Basic Tuple Operations......Page 224 8.2.1 The tuple() Function......Page 225 8.3 Indexing and Slicing in Tuples......Page 226 8.4 Built-In Functions Used on Tuples......Page 228 8.5 Relation between Tuples and Lists......Page 229 8.6 Relation between Tuples and Dictionaries......Page 230 8.7 Tuple Methods......Page 231 8.7.2 Traversing of Tuples......Page 232 8.7.3 Populating Tuples with Items......Page 233 8.9 Sets......Page 237 8.10 Set Methods......Page 239 8.10.1 Traversing of Sets......Page 240 8.11 Frozenset......Page 242 Multiple Choice Questions......Page 243 Review Questions......Page 248 9: Files......Page 250 9.1 Types of Files......Page 251 9.1.1 File Paths......Page 252 9.1.2 Fully Qualified Path and Relative Path......Page 253 9.2.1 Creating and Opening Text Files......Page 254 9.2.2 File close() Method......Page 256 9.2.3 Use of with Statements to Open and Close Files......Page 258 9.3 File Methods to Read and Write Data......Page 260 9.4 Reading and Writing Binary Files......Page 268 9.5 The Pickle Module......Page 270 9.6 Reading and Writing CSV Files......Page 272 9.7 Python os and os.path Modules......Page 278 9.8 Summary......Page 282 Multiple Choice Questions......Page 283 Review Questions......Page 286 10.1 Using Special Characters......Page 288 10.1.2 Using Parentheses in Regular Expressions......Page 293 10.2.1 Compiling Regular Expressions Using compile() Method of re Module......Page 294 10.2.2 Match Objects......Page 295 10.4 Regular Expression with glob Module......Page 303 Multiple Choice Questions......Page 305 Review Questions......Page 308 11.1 Classes and Objects......Page 310 11.2 Creating Classes in Python......Page 312 11.3 Creating Objects in Python......Page 314 11.4 The Constructor Method......Page 315 11.5 Classes with Multiple Objects......Page 318 11.5.1 Using Objects as Arguments......Page 322 11.5.2 Objects as Return Values......Page 324 11.6 Class Attributes versus Data Attributes......Page 327 11.7 Encapsulation......Page 328 11.7.1 Using Private Instance Variables and Methods......Page 330 11.8 Inheritance......Page 332 11.8.1 Accessing the Inherited Variables and Methods......Page 333 11.8.2 Using super() Function and Overriding Base Class Methods......Page 335 11.8.3 Multiple Inheritances......Page 338 11.8.4 Method Resolution Order (MRO)......Page 341 11.9 The Polymorphism......Page 349 11.9.1 Operator Overloading and Magic Methods......Page 352 11.10 Summary......Page 356 Multiple Choice Questions......Page 357 Review Questions......Page 359 12.1.1 Lambda......Page 362 12.1.2 Iterators......Page 363 12.1.3 Generators......Page 364 12.1.4 List Comprehensions......Page 365 12.2 JSON and XML in Python......Page 367 12.2.1 Using JSON with Python......Page 368 12.2.2 Using Requests Module......Page 374 12.2.3 Using XML with Python......Page 376 12.3 NumPy with Python......Page 380 12.3.1 NumPy Arrays Creation Using array() Function......Page 381 12.3.2 Array Attributes......Page 382 12.3.3 NumPy Arrays Creation with Initial Placeholder Content......Page 383 12.3.4 Integer Indexing, Array Indexing, Boolean Array Indexing, Slicing and Iterating in Arrays......Page 385 12.3.5 Basic Arithmetic Operations on NumPy Arrays......Page 388 12.3.6 Mathematical Functions in NumPy......Page 389 12.3.7 Changing the Shape of an Array......Page 390 12.3.8 Stacking and Splitting of Arrays......Page 391 12.3.9 Broadcasting in Arrays......Page 392 12.4 Pandas......Page 395 12.4.1 Pandas Series......Page 396 12.4.2 Pandas DataFrame......Page 401 12.5 Altair......Page 419 12.6 Summary......Page 430 Multiple Choice Questions......Page 431 Review Questions......Page 434 Appendix-A: Debugging Python Code......Page 436 Bibliography......Page 446 Solutions......Page 448 Index......Page 458 Python is a free general purpose programming language with a beautiful syntax. The topics in the book have been carefully selected to give good exposure to almost all the core concepts of the Python Programming language helping students as well as professionals in getting off the ground quickly.