Book Image

Learn Python in 7 Days

Book Image

Learn Python in 7 Days

Overview of this book

Python is a great language to get started in the world of programming and application development. This book will help you to take your skills to the next level having a good knowledge of the fundamentals of Python. We begin with the absolute foundation, covering the basic syntax, type variables and operators. We'll then move on to concepts like statements, arrays, operators, string processing and I/O handling. You’ll be able to learn how to operate tuples and understand the functions and methods of lists. We’ll help you develop a deep understanding of list and tuples and learn python dictionary. As you progress through the book, you’ll learn about function parameters and how to use control statements with the loop. You’ll further learn how to create modules and packages, storing of data as well as handling errors. We later dive into advanced level concepts such as Python collections and how to use class, methods, objects in python. By the end of this book, you will be able to take your skills to the next level having a good knowledge of the fundamentals of Python.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface
2
Type Variables and Operators

Scope of variables


This could be an intriguing topic for you to understand for the first time. But it is actually a very simple topic. Let's try to understand this with a real-life situation. You might be aware of two types of airlines: domestic and international carriers. The scope of domestic carriers will be restricted to a particular country's operation only, while an international carrier has the scope to operate on an international border. Same is the case with variables. The scope on the broader aspect defines the access level for specific variable. There are two basic scopes of variables in Python:

  • Local variables
  • Global variables

A local variable is defined inside the Python function. Local variables are only accessible within their local scope. A global variable is defined outside the Python function. Global variables are only accessible throughout the program:

Here, the variable k with value 4 is an example of a global variable, while the list1 variable is an example of a local variable...