Monday, March 19, 2012

csci133number.py

Reference: http://docs.python.org/library/stdtypes.html#numeric-types-int-float-long-complex
Please, please, please click on it and read it if you want to know the full details of the information. The reference page tell you exactly everything you ever need to understand them!

There are total of 4 number type (or Numeric Type): integers, float, long, complex.
  • Integer - implemented using long in C, have 32bits of precisions.  Integers can be positive and negative, but they are whole numbers. (1,2, 3, 4, 5, 0, -1, -2..)
  • Floating point - implemented using double in C. When you need decimal point, you can use floating point. Such as 1234.5 + 1234.5.
  • Long integers - have unlimited amount of precisions. (See here for long integers). It is useful if you are calculating the amount of debt United States is under. (wink wink)
  • Complex - have real and imaginary component to it. (See here for Complex numbers). I think it is very useful, but I am not yet familiar with it yet, I shall come back to it soon.
If floating point is not enough for your usage, you can also use fraction, and decimal. Python is very nice because it support mixed arithmetic, when you do this, python will convert the broader type into narrower type. For example: Integer * Floating point = Integer.

The relationship is the follow: Complex > Floating point > Long Integer > Integer
# Get the absolute value 
abs(-5)

# Convert something into integer
myNumberInString = '100'
anotherNumber = 50
result = 0
result += int(myNumberInString) + anotherNumber

# The power of x function 2^3
pow(2, 3)

There is a thing called module, it is a package of tools. Similar to header files in C++, remember the math class in C++? There is one similar to it in python, and it is called math too. We have to always import the module before we can use its tool. There are many of them, feel free to experiment with it, they provide you a lot of useful subroutine.
# Sample code for math moduele
import math
print(math.pi)
>>> 3.1415926535897931

csci133Buildin.py

Everything in Python are objects, and python's build-in types are objects too. When you use the build-in types, you don't have to worry about anything such as memory allocation, implement insert, search, sort, list, print, and get routines. We can start immediately work on our code. *In C++, we usually call them functions, In JAVA, we call them methods and finally, in Python, they are called routines. Here is a list of reason why you should try to use build-in types as much as you can.
  1. They are easy- if you need simple program, they are great for fast development , easy to write, debug, and for others to read and understand your code. You can write a program to calculate expense in just about 5 mins using the build in types.
  2. They are useful - you can use them to build more complex object. They are like lego, you can stack them and form different tools.
  3. Efficient - if you want performance, look no further, they are perfected by developer, and will only get better as more release follow. It is less likely you will write a more efficient routines than them, although maybe for highly specialized input.
  4. Always here - every python comes with them, you don't have to download anything extra, and they are standardize cross everyone. Everyone has the same copies when they download the Python.

Name
Example
Sample Code
Reference
Number
12345, 1234.5
String
‘Hello Python’
List
[1, 2, 3] [‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’]
csci133list.py
Dictionary
{‘username’:’password’}
csci133dictionary.py
Boolean
True, False
csci133boolean.py

Here is an index of some of the basic build in types offered by python, please note there are a lot more other kinds that I didn't have a chance to cover! Although it is my goal, to write about all the build in data types :) . Python is dynamically typed (instead of declaring the type and compile the code), and strongly typed (means you can not perform other type function on another type). It is something to keep in mind when you are learning other languages.

Friday, March 16, 2012

csci133p6.py

This is a taste of graphical user interface, and including myself too. When the program is run with a GUI, the feeling is just so much "different", you are able to change your option with a click of bottom, there are now colors! You can change the color of the background easily. And the very sample program that you write are now so much more interesting. But the planning is now more important than ever as well, because you need to figure out what is it you want to be display on the screen before you start.

The focus we are using in this series of tutorial is from Tkinter, or known as TK.
from Tkinter import *

root = Tk()
# Change the background color to light green
root['bg'] = 'light green'

# Create a title widget in the frame of root
simpleTitle = Label(root)
simpleTitle['text'] = 'Hello Tkinter!'
simpleTitle.pack()

mainloop()
The output of the program above is like this, it is a simple window with the string, 'Hello Tkinter!', but try to make the window size better!


Do you see the green color? That's the light green background color we set. It is not shown when the GUI launched, you can resize the window, by moving your mouse pointer to the border of the window, and then just drag it larger. So there you have it you see the background color. You can also change the color of the text label if you want it too.


Look at line 1:
from Tkinter import *
We have to import the module of Tkinter, because although python does ship with this, you have to let python know you want to use this.
We create a Tk() object named root, this is like a base frame. And then we can change the background color, by accessing its ['bg'] indexed variable, and assign it to 'light green'. If you want, you can change it to 'light pink' as well.
Look at line 8:
simpleTitle = Label(root)
simpleTitle['text'] = 'Hello Tkinter!'
simpleTitle.pack()
We here create a Label named simpleLabel, it is based on the root's frame, that's the reason. If there is another frame, we would replace root with the name of the frame. For example: myLabel = Label(anotherFrame). Just like ['bg'] field, there is a ['text'] field associate with it too, we access it the same way we access the background color, we can assign a string to it. And at last, we have to call .pack(), to ask Tk to draw it onto the screen. When we make changes, we have to always do .pack(). Notice pack() is a function, it actually takes parameters!

Reference: http://docs.python.org/library/tkinter.html#packer-options
Here is the list of possible options:
  • expand: if it is set to true, it will expand as the window's size get bigger. Ex: foo.pack(expand=YES)
  • fill: it is to screen, there are 3 options to it, either X, Y, BOTH
    Ex: foo.pack(fill=BOTH)
  • side: it get where your widget want to be positioned. TOP (default), BOTTOM, LEFT, RIGHT
    Ex: foo.pack(side=LEFT)
  • anchor: which way it snaps on to, it is think as a compass, has 8 directions. "n", "ne", "e", "se", "s", "sw", "w", "nw", "center"
    Ex: foo.pack(anchor=w)

Example of such chained options:
foo.pack(expand=YES, side=LEFT, fill=X)

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

csci133c5.py

In python, there is an extremely useful data type called dictionary. What a dictionary is a collection of unordered (key, value) pairs. Notice, one value can be mapped to one key only, so if you try to add another value with the same key, it will change the value it originally assigned to it. It makes sense because if you have a few values mapped to the same key, you have no idea which is which.

Take a look at the example for the dictionary below
passwords = {'george':'dog', 'gerry':'cat', 'stephen':'chicken'}
name = input('Username: ')
password = input('Password: ')
if name == passwords[password]:
   print('Correct, welcome:', name)
else:
   print('Sorry, bad password.')
Output:
Username: george
Password: dog
Correct, welcome: george

Username: george
Password: cat
Sorry, bad password.
Reference: http://docs.python.org/tutorial/datastructures.html#dictionaries
And lastly, we can not use a list as the key either, because you can modify a list by accessing it with the index assignment, slice assignment or other methods. You create a dictionary with a pair of braces{}, it is now an empty dictionary. You separate the entries by comma, and you give the value to the key by :. key: value is the syntax for the dictionary entries.
  • keys(), which return a list of all the keys used in the dictionary
  • del dictionary[key], delete the key:value pair
  • if you store a key that is already has a value, the old value will be gone
  • the keys can be strings and numbers 
  • the value can be objects of any kind
When you want to look up a key and see what its value is, do this:
passwords['george']
# Return value will be 'dog'
Look at line 4, there is a if statement, similar to C++, if is a control flow statement. You can write a else statement that allow it to be executed when the if statement condition is not satisfy. But you can just use if statement by itself too.
myNum = 10
if myNum > 5:
    print('My number is greater than 5') # Totally cool too
So, now you know for loop, you know how to open a file, and a if else. Let's start to create some program with them. It is like lego, when you have more parts, you can create more complex (powerful) projects.

Monday, February 20, 2012

csci133c4.py

Since we downloaded a txt file, this tutorial is about opening it. Here is the code.
with open('book.txt') as book:
    # The book is a list containing all lines
    for line in book:
        # If the line contain the string 'yourselves'
        if 'yourselves' in line:
            print(line)
The first line there is a reserved python keyword with, followed by open('filename'). It is actually a path name between the (), but if you don't provide a path, it is assumed it is the current directory. In case you have to access a file from a different folder, you would provide it a path with the file name. Such as ../../csci133/ch1/csci133c4.py.

You would open the text file into another object . You don't have to call it book, you can call it anything you want, that would be list containing all the "lines". In the event of it is actually a text file with strings after strings, you does make sense to call it something along the line of data, book, and myFile. You can try to iterate through it with for loop.
for object in objects:
    # do something here
Example problem #1: Count the number of words contained in the txt file
count = 0
with open('book.txt') as book:
    for line in book:
            # += is the same as count = count + count
            count += len(line.split())
print('There are', count, 'of words.')
Before we are done, there is also way to get input from the user, you would set up a variable, and assign it the value of the input.
Example problem #2: Take an input from the user (like cin in C++)
name = input('What is your name?')
print('Hello, nice to meet you', name) 
Python's list comprehension
It is a handy way to write code in a very short way, compare the two code. They do the same thing. I heard from people, it is a way to pretend to be smart, on the other hand, it seems useful to write code in a short way I guess. I prefer slightly the longer way, but I have a feeling in the professional world, everyone use list comprehension. Because it is faster, and less likely to create errors.
for number in numbers:
    data[number] = data[years][time] 
    return data
the data to be changed for object in objects
return [data[number][time] for number in years]
# Regular code
iceCreams = IceCreamFlavor()
iceCreamMenu = [] # iceCreamMenu is a list
for number in range(5):
    iceCreamMenu = iceCreams.random()

# Same code with list comprehension
iceCreams = IceCreamFlavor()
iceCreamMenu = [iceCreams.random() for number in range(5)]
The more I use it, the more I think it is useful. Just like all functions and methods (well, most of them). It is meant to help us write program faster and easier. Just like a a lot of the helper function is build in, this is build in to help us not have to spend as much time to get what we want.

Notice the range(5)? That means it is created a list of 5 numbers, [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. Useful tool as well! Instead of doing a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. And for number in a.
# The range(5)
for number in range(5):
    # Statement

# Same as this
numbers = [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
for number in numbers:
    # Statement
Reference: http://docs.python.org/library/functions.html#range
range([start], stop[, step]) 
It is very commonly used in for loops, the start and stop arguments must be integers, if you didn't give it a step argument, it will be default to 1. If you didn't give it a start argument, it will be default to 0.
The range() function create a list with the number 0, 1, 2, 3, 4. Notice python is zero based, so if you need to print out from 1 to 5. You would not want to offset the number variable. <Correct way: to use the start argument>
# To print 1-5 the correct way
for number in range(1,6):
    print(number)
Output:
>>> for number in range(1,6):
...     print(number)
... 
1
2
3
4
5
>>>  
As for the step argument, it is what the increment is used. If you use the step of 2. Ex: range(0, 10, 2), it will give you [2, 4, 6, 8, 10]

Practice Problem:
# Write a range(start, stop, step) that generate the following results
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
[0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10]
[1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11]
[0, 50, 100]
[3, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21]

Answer to the problems: Notice for the question when it ask you where to stop, you can either stop at the next value (11) for the case of 10, or stop at the next increment value, 150 for the case of 100, or 101 for the case of 100. It will still work the same. I just like to do it this way, if you get the same answer, then you should be good to go.
>>> for number in range(10):
>>> for number in range(1, 11):
>>> for number in range(0, 12, 2):
>>> for number in range(1, 13, 2):
>>> for number in range(0, 150, 50):
>>> for number in range(3, 23, 3):
Note: Because reading again on the range() documentation, I thought the only way to do print 1-5 is to offset. Which show us how important and good it is to read the reference.

Monday, February 6, 2012

csci133c3.py

Welcome to the 3rd notes for the python programming lab. Let's take a look at the code and see what does it do. Today we will talk about the function. Function is a block of code that do varies kind of thing, and might or might not return the value it get.
line = 'This is a sample line of text.'
# Measure the length of the line string
print(len(line))

# Split the line string by spaces, return a list
print(line.split())

# Measure how many word are there now
print(len(line.split()))
Output:
30
['This', 'is', 'a', 'sample', 'line', 'of', 'text.']
7
Pay close attention to line #3, when we call a function (or to use a function). We can also pass some data if the function accept it, that data is called parameter, or argument. So we passed the line into the length function, len(line). And the function returned the result of 30, and then it is being passed to the print function and print on the screen. That is why it is outputed as 30.

Whenever we want to print thing on the screen, we are always actually calling the print function, and passing the number, letter, or word into the function. What about the split function? What does it do? From the python's web manual.
http://docs.python.org/library/stdtypes.html#str.split
str.split([sep[, maxsplit]])

Return a list of the words in the string, using sep as the delimiter string. If maxsplit is given, at most maxsplit splits are done (thus, the list will have at most maxsplit+1 elements). If maxsplit is not specified, then there is no limit on the number of splits (all possible splits are made).

For example, ' 1 2 3 '.split() returns ['1', '2', '3'], and ' 1 2 3 '.split(None, 1) returns ['1', '2 3 '].
The function require a string to be invoked on, that's why it has str.split(), the split function actually takes argument. But at the moment we just want it to split with blanks, or spaces. Note each data type has their own set of functions build in to them.

Example Problem #1: Turn a string into all lower case
If you want to turn a string to lower case
word = 'THE QUEEN'
word = 'THE APPLE'
newWord = word.lower()
print('Before:', word)
print('After:', newWord)
Output:
Before: THE QUEEN
After: the queen
Example Problem #2: Turn every word into lower case, remove the symbols, print them one by one. (One on each line). String is from a random novel on the web.
line = 'http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/39133/pg39133.txt'
newLine = ''
for char in line:
    if char in 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz':
        newLine = newLine + char
    else:
        newLine = newLine + ' '
print('Before:', line)
print('After:', newLine)
print('Split it:', newLine.split())
for word in newLine.split():
    print(word)
Output:
Before: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/39133/pg39133.txt
After: http   www gutenberg org cache epub       pg      txt
Split it: ['http', 'www', 'gutenberg', 'org', 'cache', 'epub', 'pg', 'txt']
http
www
gutenberg
org
cache
epub
pg
txt 
So before we go, let's go to this link, download the file into our current dir. Because the next tutorial we will use that file! http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/39133/pg39133.txt , and rename it to book.txt

Practice Problem:  Write a program to clean up the following string, turn all letters into lower case, and print one word per line.
foo = '[_He approaches Fabiani._]'
Output:
he
approaches
fabiani

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Pydev in Eclipse on Mac

When you downloaded Pydev for Eclipse, you have to set up the Python interpreter before you can start using it. Here is the instruction.

To configure a Python or Jython interpreter in 
Eclipse > Preferences > PyDev



When you are in Preferences, find PyDev, and click on the Interpreter - Python



Choose New in the upper right and enter /usr/bin/python
Eclipse will then take care of the rest for you – ie. updating the $PYTHONPATH
    Reference & Credit: On Using Pydev on a Mac.

    Friday, January 20, 2012

    Python Reference Link

    In this post I will include all the reference I used when I am learning Python, some of them are textbook, some of them are website.

    • http://effbot.org/tkinterbook/tkinter-whats-tkinter.htm
      Very easy and simple to read, proivde a good starting point if you never done any kind of GUI before. It is very short and to the point, there are no complicated theory or other information. Not to say it is not important however, but to get you up to speed and start writing software, it is great!
    • http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/python
      A google for programming related question, actually it is a really good idea to just read the questions and the answers. Sometimes it is like little trick and tips, sometimes it is the concept explained in another point of view that is not like from a textbook, but from a working professional programmer. It fits the bill of learning something everyday ;)
    • http://python.net/~goodger/projects/pycon/2007/idiomatic/handout.html
      It is like a python programming guide with a lot of cool tips and trick that a new programmers might overlook. Good read, and interesting.
    • http://docs.python.org/tutorial/
      The best tutorial there is for beginner learning how to write program in python. It talks about a lot of the buildin function, type, module. It shows great example code as well as the required parameters and return type.

    Python's Doc Tutorial Notes

    Chapter 1: Whetting Your Appetite

    Python is really simple to use, but at the same time it offer more structure and support for large program. In particular, the error checking is very well developed compare to C. Where in C, they expect you to make judgement yourself, and handle the possible problem yourself. And of course, Python has a lot of high-level data types built in, such as flexible array and dictionaries, which can be apply to all types, even your own class. Similar to C++'s vector, you can put your class object into the vector.

    Python follows the main heart idea of OOP, it allows user to separate and export their program into modules. And then you can reuse or extend it as needed. There are quite a few module that comes standard with all the python installation, such as file I/O, system calls, sockets, and graphical user interface toolkit such as tkinter.

    Python is an interpreted language, so you don't have to worry about comilating and linking your file. Remember when you write a c program, instead of just pressing a "run" button, or F5 in the default IDE, you will instead go to your terminal, type in: g++ -Wall -o csci133p1 csci133p1.cpp ccsci133myClass.cpp. These sort of goodies, after you type them, and then you are hit with a wall of error message that is not very human-readable, but except telling you line number x is broken?

    And a couple of key note-worthy characteristic:
    1. Python can do complex operations in 1 liner, and in fact most python programmer love the 1 liner solutions a lot.
    2. Python's statement grouping is done by indentation, instead of the ending brackets {}
    3. There are no variable type declaration, and similarly, there is no return type specified. You can return as many things as your heart desire, by doing return my_number, my_home, my_food

    Python's name has nothing to do with the reptiles, it is because the author like the BBC show "Monty Python's Flying Cirus". But despite reading this, I still think about python as "a big snake". :)

    Chapter 2.1 Notes

    Thursday, January 19, 2012

    csci133c2.py

    After we learn how to write a loop, we can do more by combining two or more of them. It is actually very easy too. Say I want to list all the possible combination of ice cream. I want to create something that will output this.
    # Output desired
    I like Vanilla ice cream with Gummy Bear
    I like Vanilla ice cream with Cookies
    I like Vanilla ice cream with Nuts
    I like Vanilla ice cream with Chips
    I like Chocolate ice cream with Gummy Bear
    I like Chocolate ice cream with Cookies
    I like Chocolate ice cream with Nuts
    I like Chocolate ice cream with Chips
    
    There are 2 kinds of ice cream and 4 kinds of topping in this program, so we most likely going to need 2 list, and then we loop them each through another.
    # Solution code for the example above
    iceCreams = ['Vanilla', 'Chocolate']
    toppings = ['Gummy Bear', 'Cookies', 'Nuts', 'Chips']
    # Looping through the ice creams
    for iceCream in iceCreams:
        # Looping through the toppings
        for topping in toppings:
            print('I like', iceCream, 'ice cream with', topping)
    
    There you have it, it is actually very simply to check for all possible combinations of the items you have in your list, does not matter if they are food, student, car, dog, anything you want. Anyway, so now let say you only want Cookies as your topping on your ice cream, you will need to check if topping is cookies, here is how to do it in python!
    # if statement example
    numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
    prime = [1, 2, 3, 5, 7]
    for number in numbers:
        # Check if the number is in the list of prime we have
        if number in prime:
           print('The number', number, 'is a prime!')
    
    Output:
    The number 1 is a prime!
    The number 2 is a prime!
    The number 3 is a prime!
    The number 5 is a prime!
    The number 7 is a prime!
    
    Note, this is just an example to showcase the example of the if statement, in real life this is not how it is done. A much more useful example: The vowels example:
    # Example problem that check for vowels
    vowels = 'aeiou'
    words = ['apple', 'banana', 'orange', 'grapes', 'mango']
    for word in words:
        for letter in word:
                if letter in vowels:
                   print(letter, 'is in the word:', word)
    
    Output:
    a is in the word: apple
    e is in the word: apple
    a is in the word: banana
    a is in the word: banana
    a is in the word: banana
    o is in the word: orange
    a is in the word: orange
    e is in the word: orange
    a is in the word: grapes
    e is in the word: grapes
    a is in the word: mango
    o is in the word: mango
    
    Practice Problem:
    Write a program that checks the word 'google', and print what are the vowels.
    Write a program that print one type of ice cream on each line
    # Use this list of ice cream for the practice problem
    iceCreams = ['Vanilla', 'Chocolate', 'Strawberry',
                 'Neapolitan', 'Chocolate Chip', 'French vanilla', 
                 'Cookies and Cream', 'Vanilla Fudge Ripple', 'Praline pecan']
    
    Write a program that print 'I love ice cream' 50 times :)
    # Tip: Don't write print() 16 times, think about loop, n * n = 16...?
    Write a program that count down from 20 to 1
    # Tip: Create an integer counter, and -1 each time you run through
    20
    19
    18
    17
    16
    15
    14
    13
    12
    11
    10
    9
    8
    7
    6
    5
    4
    3
    2
    1
    
    Write a program that check the vowel in the ice cream name list
    # Use this list of ice cream for the practice problem
    iceCreams = ['Vanilla', 'Chocolate']
    
    Solution
    # Solution on the question
    iceCreams = ['Vanilla', 'Chocolate']
    vowels = 'aeiou'
    for iceCream in iceCreams:
        for letter in iceCream:
            for letter in vowels:
                print(iceCream, 'has vowel', letter, 'in it')