Choose Your Own Pyventure/Midclass Review
REVIEW
editOkay, it's not all review. Some of it is new. The rest of it is review.
These examples and questions should be challenging! Get in, and get dirty! The only way to learn to code is to try to make code. When it breaks:
- take a deep breath
- read the error message. They are often quite informative.
- check your
- indentation
- matching parentheses / braces / brackets / quotes
- ego. We all make mistakes!
If you're confused about anything here, seek out a more complete Python reference,
or bring questions to class.
Dictionaries
edit- dicts associate keys with values
- are accessed through their keys
- have no inherent order
- Exercise: Create the dictionary D, which we'll use throughout the exercises. Note: we can use the dict() function to make a dictionary as well.
D = {'i':1, 'l': [1,2,3], 's': "my favorite string", d= dict(a=1,b=2)}
What is broken here? Now try this.
D = {'i':1, 'l': [1,2,3], 's': "my favorite string", 'd': dict(a=1,b=2)}
- what are the keys of D
get all keys:
d.keys() # this won't work since d isn't defined! D.keys()
- what are the values?
get values:
D.values()
- try to access the values of D
Accessing:
D['i'] D['d'] D['c'] # what happens when it doesn't exist?
- try deleting a key-value pair from D
delete using del
del D['i'] del D['c']
- try adding a key-value pair to D: 'newkey' -> True
adding:
D['newkey'] = True
- Examine the get method of dictionaries
help(D.get)
- try:
- D.get('i',"notfound")
- D.get('c',"notfound")
Help on built-in function get:
get(...) D.get(k[,d]) -> D[k] if k in D, else d. d defaults to None.
Bascially, return D[k] if k is in D, otherwise, return d. This saves
our bacon from having a KeyError
when a key isn't in the
dictionary.
- extra credit: try dict(1='a'). Predict what will happen, and explain it.
- dict(a=1)
- dict('a'=1)
- dict(class=1)
- help(dict)
1
isn't a valid python variable name.
The dict()
function expects valid python
identifiers, as described in the help.
- extra credit: What is the first element of D?
Trick question! Dictionaries don't have inherent order! It may vary from machine to machine or from python version to python version. In any case, it's not something to rely on.
Lists, Tuples, Strings
editList, tuples and strings are all python sequence types
- they are ordered
- they are accessed by their index [0,..,n], unlike dictionaries, which are accessed by key
- some are mutable (meaning the elements can change)
- strings have additional methods like upper, lower, split etc.
- sequences support slicing (see below)
- construct
L,t,s
like this:
L = [8,'a',[1,2,3],None,'b'] t = ('hallway', "a creepy hallway!") s = "a few of my favoirite strings"
- try accessing different elements.
L[0] s[1] t[2] L['a']
L['a']
fails because sequences are accessed by index
not by name.
- which ones are immutable?
L[0] = 1 s[0] = 1 t[0] = 1
Tuples and Strings are immutable. Tuples imply that the positions mean something, where lists can be appended to, deleted from, and the like.
- extra credit experiements in slicing
L[:2] L[2:] L[-3] L[10] L[::-1]
Functions
edit- make this function:
yell_month(name,monthint) -> string
that works like this:
>>> yell_month('gregg', 1) 'January GREGG'
>>> yell_month('mIRANda', 7) 'July MIRANDA'
- try it using a dictionary, and if/elif/else statements
two methods
# here's one method, using a dict. def yell_month(name,monthint): months = {1: 'January', 2: 'February', } # etc. name = name.strip().upper() return months.get(monthint, "MONTHUARY") + " " + name
# another, using if/else def yell_month(name,monthint): month = "SMARCH" if monthint == 1: month = "January" elif monthint == 2: month = "February" ... # lots of omitted code else: month = "SMARCH" name = name.strip().upper() return month + " " + name # which do you think is easier?
Loops
editSometimes we want to do things more than once. Computers don't get bored by repetitive work, and have infinite patience. Exploit this!
Iterators
editPython has a magic appearing construct called for...in
, that
iterates over data structures.
for element in thing: print element, type(element)
Try iterating over our sequences, substituting our friends D,s,t,L
for 'thing'.
iterator example
for thing in (D,s,t,L): print thing for element in thing: print element, type(element)
While Loops
editThe while constructor runs the body of the loop for as long as the condition is True.
Here is an example:
def countdown(n):
while n >= 1:
print n
n = n -1
print "liftoff"
- try this with different values for n, like 0, 1, -1, 'a', None
- write a function that counts up to a number.
- final_countdown, which despite its name, uses a for loop
def final_countdown():
''' print a version of Europe's 'The Final Countdown' '''
phrases = [
'do de do dooo',
'do de do do dooo',
'de do de do',
'de do de do do de dooo'
'do de doo',
'do de do',
'do de do do deee dooooo',
'WEEEEE WOOOOOOOO',
]
for phrase in phrases:
print phrase
extra credit: make countdown wait
editWhat if we actually want the function to wait one second between loops? There is a python function called [time.sleep] that we can use.
import time
def countdown(n, wait=1):
while n >= 1:
print n
time.sleep(wait)
n = n -1
print "liftoff"
countdown(5,.5)
extra credit: break
and continue
edit
break
breaks out of a loopcontinue
goes on to the repeat in the loop
example with continue and break:
def cases_spaces_breaks(sentence): for letter in sentence: if letter == " ": break elif letter.islower(): continue elif letter.isupper(): print letter, "is uppity!" else: print letter, "is middle cased?"
- try this out with various input sentences, to discover what it does
The Standard Library
editExplore the standard library.
- Choose a function or module, and experiment with it.
- Tell the class which one you chose!
- Show some code using it.
- Describe its inputs and outputs.
Get Dirty!
editLook at the standard exceptions (errors), and see which ones you recognize. Try to write code that triggers these errors:
- SyntaxError
- KeyError
- NameError
- TypeError (hint:
int()
is a good candidate!) - IndexError
- ImportError
Generate some errors:
a = '1 # SyntaxError {}['a'] # KeyError print fake_var # NameError int('a') # TypeError [1,2,3][8] # IndexError import fake # ImportError