Book Image

Scientific Computing with Python - Second Edition

By : Claus Führer, Jan Erik Solem, Olivier Verdier
Book Image

Scientific Computing with Python - Second Edition

By: Claus Führer, Jan Erik Solem, Olivier Verdier

Overview of this book

Python has tremendous potential within the scientific computing domain. This updated edition of Scientific Computing with Python features new chapters on graphical user interfaces, efficient data processing, and parallel computing to help you perform mathematical and scientific computing efficiently using Python. This book will help you to explore new Python syntax features and create different models using scientific computing principles. The book presents Python alongside mathematical applications and demonstrates how to apply Python concepts in computing with the help of examples involving Python 3.8. You'll use pandas for basic data analysis to understand the modern needs of scientific computing, and cover data module improvements and built-in features. You'll also explore numerical computation modules such as NumPy and SciPy, which enable fast access to highly efficient numerical algorithms. By learning to use the plotting module Matplotlib, you will be able to represent your computational results in talks and publications. A special chapter is devoted to SymPy, a tool for bridging symbolic and numerical computations. By the end of this Python book, you'll have gained a solid understanding of task automation and how to implement and test mathematical algorithms within the realm of scientific computing.
Table of Contents (23 chapters)
20
About Packt
22
References

17.1 Running a Python program in a Linux shell

When you open a terminal window with the terminal app, you obtain a window with a command prompt; see Figure 17.1:

Figure 17.1: A terminal window in Ubuntu 20.04

The terminal windows come with a command prompt, often prefixed by the username and the computer's name followed by the directory name. This depends on the individual settings.

To execute the Python commands written in a file named myprogram.py, you have two choices:

  • Executing the command python myprogram.py
  • Executing the command myprogram.py directly

The second variant needs some preparation. First, you have to give permission to execute that file, and secondly, you have to tell the system which command is needed to execute that file. The permission to execute that file is given by the command:

chmod myprogram.py o+x

chmod stands for changing the file mode. The command is followed by the filename and finally the desired new modes, here o+x.

The modes that are given...