The Python Apprentice

Conventions Used in This Book

Code examples in this book are shown in a lucida console text:

>>> def square(x):...     return x * x...

Some of our examples show code saved in files, and others — such as the one above — are from interactive Python sessions. In such interactive cases, we include the prompts from the Python session such as the triple-arrow >>> and triple-dot ... prompts. You don't need to type these arrows or dots. Similarly, for operating system shell-commands we will use a dollar prompt $ for Linux, macOS and other Unixes, or where the particular operating system is unimportant for the task at hand:

$ python3 words.py

In this case, you don't need to type the $ character.

For Windows-specific commands we will use a leading greater-than ...