Chapter 5
Working with Numbers, Text, and Dates
IN THIS CHAPTER
Mastering whole numbers
Juggling numbers with decimal points
Simplifying strings
Conquering Boolean True/False
Working with dates and times
Computer languages in general, and certainly Python, deal with information in ways that are different from what you may be used to in your everyday life. This idea takes some getting used to. In the computer world, numbers are numbers you can add, subtract, multiply, and divide. Python also differentiates between whole numbers (integers) and numbers that contain a decimal point (floats). Words (textual information such as names and addresses) are stored as strings, which is short for “a string of characters.” In addition to numbers and strings, there are Boolean values, which can be either True or False.
In real life, we also have to deal with dates and times, which are yet another type of information. Python doesn’t have a built-in data type for dates and times, but thankfully, ...
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