Data Structures and Algorithms in Python

Chapter 1

Python Primer

Contents

1.1 Python Overview

1.1.1 The Python Interpreter

1.1.2 Preview of a Python Program

1.2 Objects in Python

1.2.1 Identifiers, Objects, and the Assignment Statement

1.2.2 Creating and Using Objects

1.2.3 Python's Built-In Classes

1.3 Expressions, Operators, and Precedence

1.3.1 Compound Expressions and Operator Precedence

1.4 Control Flow

1.4.1 Conditionals

1.4.2 Loops

1.5 Functions

1.5.1 Information Passing

1.5.2 Python's Built-In Functions

1.6 Simple Input and Output

1.6.1 Console Input and Output

1.6.2 Files

1.7 Exception Handling

1.7.1 Raising an Exception

1.7.2 Catching an Exception

1.8 Iterators and Generators

1.9 Additional Python Conveniences

1.9.1 Conditional Expressions

1.9.2 Comprehension Syntax

1.9.3 Packing and Unpacking of Sequences

1.10 Scopes and Namespaces

1.11 Modules and the Import Statement

1.11.1 Existing Modules

1.12 Exercises

1.1 Python Overview

Building data structures and algorithms requires that we communicate detailed instructions to a computer. An excellent way to perform such communications is using a high-level computer language, such as Python. The Python programming language was originally developed by Guido van Rossum in the early 1990s, and has since become a prominently used language in industry and education. The second major version of the language, Python 2, was released in 2000, and the third major version, Python 3, released in 2008. We note that there are significant incompatibilities between Python 2 and ...