Python Programming: A Step-by-Step Guide to Learning the Language

This book explores Python’s rich history, dynamic features, and its wide-ranging applications in web development, data science, and machine learning. From its installation process to interactive help, readers embark on a journey through Python’s unique characteristics and its distinctions from other programming languages. It lays a solid foundation for beginners and seasoned programmers alike. Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan or Bhutan) This book explores Python’s rich history, dynamic features, and its wide-ranging applications in web development, data science, and machine learning. Introduction to Python Language 1.1 Programming Language 1.2 History of Python Language 1.3 Origin of Python Programming Language 1.4 Features of Python 1.5 Limitations of Python 1.6 Major Applications of Python 1.7 Getting Python 1.8 Installing Python 1.8.1 Unix and Linux Installation 1.8.2 Windows Installation 1.8.3 Macintosh Installation 1.9 Setting up Path 1.9.1 Setting up Path at Unix/Linux 1.9.2 Setting up the Path at Windows 1.11 Running Python 1.11.1 Interactive Interpreter 1.11.2 Script from the Command-Line 1.11.3 Integrated Development Environment 1.12 First Python Program 1.12.1 Interactive Mode Programming 1.12.2 The Script Mode Programming 1.13 Python's Interactive Help 1.13.1 Python Help Through a Web Browser 1.14 Python Differences From Other Languages 1.14.1 Difference Between C and Python 1.14.2 Difference Between C++ and Python 1.14.3 Difference between Java and Python 1.15 Summary Review Questions Python Data Types and Input Output 2.1 Keywords 2.2 Identifiers 2.3 Python Statements 2.4 Indentation 2.5 Python Documentation 2.5.1 Single Line Comment 2.5.2 Multi Line Comments 2.6 Docstrings 2.7 Variables 2.7.1 Variable Assignment 2.7.2 Variable Types in Python 2.8 Multiple Assignment 2.9 Python Data Types 2.9.1 Numeric Datatype 2.9.1.1 Integers 2.9.1.2 Floating-point Numbers 2.9.1.3 Complex Numbers 2.9.2 Strings 2.9.2.1 Indexing of a String: 2.9.2.2 Negative Indexing: 2.9.2.3 Slicing 2.9.3 Booleans 2.9.4 Lists 2.9.5 Tuples 2.9.6 Sets 2.7.8 Dictionaries 2.10 Data Type Conversion 2.10.1 Implicit Type Conversion in Python 2.10.2 Explicit Type Conversion in Python 2.11 Input and output 2.12 Import 2.13 Summary Review Questions Operators and Expressions 3.1 Operator 3.1.1 Arithmetic Operators 3.1.2 Comparison Operators 3.1.3 Assignment Operator 3.1.4 Logical Operators 3.1.5 Bitwise Operators 3.1.6 Special Operators 3.1.6.1 Identity Operators 3.1.6.2 Membership Operators 3.2 Expressions 3.2.1 Python Operator Precedence 3.2.2 Associativity 3.2.3 Non-Associative Operators 3.3 Summary Review Questions Control Structures 4.1 Decision Making Statements 4.1.1 Python if Statement 4.1.2 Python if-else Statement 4.1.3 Python if-elif-else 4.1.4 Python Nested if Statements 4.2 Python Loops 4.2.1 Types of Loops 4.2.2 Python While Loop 4.2.3 The Infinite Loop 4.2.4 Using else with while Loop 4.2.5 Python for Loop 4.2.6 The range() Function 4.2.7 For Loop with else 4.2.8 Nested Loops 4.3 Python Control Statements 4.3.1 Python Break Statement 4.3.2 Python Continue Statement 4.3.3 Python Pass Statement 4.4 Summary Review Questions Python Native Data Types 5.1 Numbers 5.1.1 Number Type Conversion 5.1.2 Python Mathematical Functions 5.1.3 Python Trigonometric Functions 5.1.4 Python Random Number Functions 5.1.5 Python Mathematical Constants 5.2 Python Lists 5.2.1 Creating a List 5.2.2 Traversing a List 5.2.2.1 Indexing 5.2.2.2 Traversing Nested Lists 5.2.2.3 Negative Indexing 5.2.2.4 Slicing 5.2.3 Changing or Adding Elements to a List 5.2.4 List Methods 5.2.5 List Functions 5.2.6 List Comprehension 5.2.7 List Membership Test 5.3 Python Tuples 5.3.1 Creating a Tuple 5.3.2 Unpacking Tuple 5.3.3 Traversing Elements in a Tuple 5.3.3.1 Indexing 5.3.3.2 Negative Indexing 5.3.3.3 Tuple Slicing 5.3.3.4 Changing/Updating a Tuple 5.3.3.5 Deleting a Tuple 5.3.3.6 Python Tuple Methods 5.3.3.7 Python Tuple Functions 5.3.3.8 Advantages of Tuple 5.4 Python Sets 5.4.1 Creating a Set 5.4.2 Changing/Adding Elements to a Set 5.4.3 Removing Elements from a Set 5.4.4 Python Set Operations 5.4.4.1 Set Union 5.4.4.2 Set Intersection 5.4.4.3 Set Difference 5.4.4.4 Set Symmetric Difference 5.4.5 Python Set Methods 5.4.6 The in Operator 5.4.7 Python Set Functions 5.4.8 Frozen Sets 5.5 Python Dictionary 5.5.1 Creating a Dictionary 5.5.2 Accessing a Dictionary 5.5.3 Updating a Dictionary 5.5.4 Removing or Deleting Elements of a Dictionary 5.5.5 Python Dictionary Methods 5.5.6 Python Dictionary Membership Test 5.5.7 Python Dictionary Functions 5.6 Python Strings 5.6.1 Creating a String in Python 5.6.2 Accessing String Characters 5.6.3 Changing or Deleting String Characters 5.6.4 Python String Operations 5.6.4.1 Concatenation 5.6.4.2 Iteration and Membership Test 5.6.5 String Formatting 5.6.6 Python String Built-in Methods 5.7 Summary Review Questions Python Functions 6.1 Python Functions 6.2 Advantages of Python 6.3 Types of Functions 6.4 Built-in Functions 6.5 Python User Defined Functions 6.5.1 Function Definition 6.5.2 Function Call 6.5.3 Types of Function Arguments(Parameters) 6.5.3.1 Function with No Arguments 6.5.3.2 Function with Required Arguments 6.5.3.3 Function with Arbitrary Length Arguments 6.5.3.4 Function with Keyword Based Arguments 6.5.3.5 Function with Default Arguments 6.6 Python Anonymous Functions 6.6.1 Characteristics of Lambda Form 6.7 Pass by Value vs. Pass by Reference 6.7.1 Pass by Value 6.7.2 Pass by Object Reference 6.8 Recursion 6.8.1 Advantages of Recursion 6.8.2 Disadvantages of Recursion 6.9 Scope and Lifetime of Variables 6.10 Summary Review Questions Python Modules 7.1 Need of Module 7.2 Module Definition 7.3 Creating a Module 7.4 Importing Module in the Interpreter 7.5 Importing Module in the Another Script 7.6 Importing Modules 7.7 Search Path of Module 7.8 Module Reloading 7.9 The dir() Function 7.10 Standard Modules 7.11 Python Packages 7.12 Summary Review Questions Exception Handling 8.1 Exception 8.2 Python Built-in Exceptions 8.3 Exception Handling 8.3.1 Try, Except, Else and Finally 8.3.2 Catching Specific Exceptions in Python 8.3.3 try....finally 8.4 Python User Defined Exceptions 8.5 Summary Review Questions File Management in Python 9 Operations on Files 9.1 Opening a File 9.1 File Modes 9.1 File object Attributes 9.1 File Encoding 9.1 Closing a File 9.2 write() and read() Methods 9.2 Writing to a File 9.2 Reading from a File 9.3 Python File Methods 9.4 tell() and seek() Methods 9.5 Renaming and Deleting Files 9.5.1 Rename() Method 9.5.2 Remove() Method 9.6 Directories in Python 9.6.1 mkdir() Method 9.6.2 chdir() Method 9.6.3 getcwd() Method 9.6.4 rmdir() Method 9.6.5 listdir() Method 9.7 Python Directory Methods 9.8 Summary Review Questions Classes and Objects 10.1 Designing Classes 10.2 Creating Objects 10.2.1 Class Variable 10.2.2 Instance Variable 10.3 Types of Methods 10.4 Access Specifiers in Python 10.5 Accessing Attributes 10.6 The Class Program 10.6.1 Using a Class with Input 10.6.2 A Class Program with Computations 10.7 Editing Class Attributes 10.8 Built-in Class Attributes 10.9 Garbage Collection/Destroying Objects 10.10 Summary Review Questions Inheritance 11.1 Python Single Inheritance 11.2 Python Multiple Inheritance 11.3 Python Multilevel Inheritance 11.4 Method Overriding in Python 11.5 Special Functions in Python 11.6 Summary Review Questions Python Operator Overloading 12.1 Overloading ‘+’ Operator in Python 12.2 Overloading ‘-’ Operator in Python 12.3 Overloading Bitwise Operators 12.4 Overloading Relational Operators 12.5 Summary Review Questions Appendix Bibliography