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Python for Absolute Beginners

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Data Types

Overview

Teaching: 20 min
Exercises: 0 min
Questions

  • What kind of data types exist in Python?

  • What are the key differences between the data types?

Objectives

  • Understand the essential data types in Python

  • Explain what a string is, and what you can do with it

  • Explain the differences between integers and floats

  • Explain what a boolean is, and how to use comparisons

Data Types

There are four essential kinds of Python data with different powers and capabilities:

Take a look at the two examples below.
What differences do you notice?

'Here is a some text'

42

You might be wondering…

Why is ‘Here is some text’ surrounded by quotation marks while 42 is not?
Because these are two different “types” of Python data. We will look closer at the different types below.
Note, that many Python editors and environments (such as Juptyter Lab etc.) will colour the output based on data type. E.g. in Jupyter Lab strings will be in red and integers in green.

Data Type

Explanation

Example

String

Text

'Anything goes 4 strings!'

Integer

Whole Numbers

42

Float

Decimal Numbers

3.1415926

Boolean

True/False

False

Check Data Types

You can check the data type of any value by using the function type().

type('Here is some text')

str

The output str is short for string. 

type(42)

int

The output int is short for integer.

Strings

A string is a Python data type that is treated like text, even if it contains a number. Strings are always enclosed by either single quotation marks 'this is a string' or double quotation marks "this is a string".

'this is a string'

"this is also a string, even though it contains a number like 42"

this is not a string

It doesn’t matter whether you use single or double quotation marks with strings, as long as you use the same kind on either side of the string.

Bonus

How can you have quotation marks inside a string?

Escape characters

Escape characters and how to tell Python to igonre special meanings. This can be handy if you need to make quotation marks inside a string. This can be done in two ways.

Use the opposite kind of quotation mark inside the string:

"She exclaimed, 'This is a quotation inside a string!'"

Or “escape” the quotation mark by using a backslash \ before it:

"She exclaimed, \"This is also a quotation inside a string!\""

String Methods

Each data type has different properties and capabilities. So there are special things that only strings can do, and there are special ways of interacting with strings.

For example, you can index and slice strings, you can add strings together.
Here are a few examples:

Index

Often in programming languages, individual items in an ordered set of data, can be accessed directly using a numeric index or key value. This process is referred to as indexing.

In Python, strings are ordered sequences of character data, and thus can be indexed in this way. Individual characters in a string can be accessed by specifying the string name followed by a number in square brackets [].

String indexing in Python is zero-based: the first character in the string has index 0, the next has index 1, and so on. The index of the last character will be the length of the string minus one. It can be illustrated like this:

index

The individual characters can be accessed by index:

'I am a string'[0]

'I'

'I am a string'[7]

's'

Slice

Python allows a form of indexing syntax that extracts substrings from a string, known as string slicing.
If s is a string, an expression of the form s[start:stop] returns the portion of s starting with position start, and up to but not including position stop:

'I am a string'[0:8]

'I am a s'

Concatenation

The + operator concatenates strings. It returns a string consisting of the operands joined together, as shown here:

'I am a string' + ' and so am I'

'I am a string and so am I'

Notice that we have added a space in the beginning of the second string, otherwise there would be no space between ‘string’ and ‘and’. You can also add a space between two strings like this:

'I am a string' + ' ' + 'and so am I' 

'I am a string and so am I'

Integers & Floats

An integer and a float are two Python data types for representing numbers.

Integers and floats do not need to be placed in quotation marks.

type(42)

int

type(3.1415926)

float

Mathematical operations

You can do a large range of mathematical calculations and operations with integers and floats. Here are a few examples, for an extended overview you can fold out a table at the end of this section.

Multiplication

You can multiply in Python using the * operator

4 * 2

8

Exponents

You can use ** as the exponent operator. An exponent is an expression of the number of times a number is muliplied by itself.

4 ** 2

16

Modulus

The modulus or remainder operator looks like this: a % b. However, it does not work as a percentage although it might look like one. Instead it divides a with b and the remainder is returned.

72 % 10

2

More mathemathical operators

These are just a few of the mathmathical operations in Python - see the table below from Python’s documentation about Built-in Types.

Click here to see more mathmathical operators

Operation

Explanation

x + y

sum of x and y

x - y

difference of x and y

x * y

product of x and y

x / y

quotient of x and y

x // y

floored quotient of x and y

x % y

remainder of x / y

-x

x negated

+x

x unchanged

abs(x)

absolute value or magnitude of x

int(x)

x converted to integer

float(x)

x converted to floating point

pow(x, y)

x to the power y

x ** y

x to the power y

Booleans

Booleans are “truth” values. They report on whether things in your Python universe are True or False. There are the only two options for a boolean: True or False. The boolean operators are or, and, and not. They are used to check if certain conditions are met before the program continues running. This is extremely helpful and even if it seems a bit confusing right now, it will make sense later. Here are a few examples of using boolean logic.

13 < 17

True

In this example above we state that 13 is less than 17 - which returns True because 13 is less than 17.

"hello" == "hi"

False

In the example above we state that ‘hello’ is equal to ‘hi’, which in the computers understanding it is not. Therefore, we get False as the output.

666 == 777

False

In this example above we state that 666 is equal to 777, which it is not. Therefore, we get False as the output.

Table of Boolean operations:

Operation

Result

x or y

if either x or y is true, then True, else False

x and y

if both x and y is true, then True, else False

not x

if x is false, then True, else False

Comparisons

You can compare values in Python using different comparison operations. Comparisons are used to compare different values and objects in Python, which we will learn much more about later. For now take a look at the comparisions and their meaning in the table underneath.

This table summarizes the comparison operations:

Comparison operation

Explanation

x < y

True if x is less than y

x <= y

True if x is less than or equal to y

x > y

True if x is greater than y

x >= y

True if x is greater than or equal to y

x == y

True if x is equal to y

!=

True if x is not equal to y


Notice the difference between a single equals sign = and a double equals sign ==

  • A double equals sign == is used as the equals operator
  • A single equals sign = is used for variable assignment (We will learn more about this in the lesson about variables)


Key Points

  • There are 4 data types in Python: Integers, floats, strings, and booleans

  • You can use the built-in function type() to find the type of a value

  • Strings are text, they can be added to one another, you can slice them to get a substring, and use the index to acess the individual character

  • Integers are whole numbers. You can use mathemethical operations on them

  • Floats are decimal numbers. You can use mathemathical opreations on them

  • Booleans are either True or False

  • A double equals sign == is used as the equals operator, a single equals sign = is used for variable assignment

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