Book Image

Python Fundamentals

By : Ryan Marvin, Mark Nganga, Amos Omondi
Book Image

Python Fundamentals

By: Ryan Marvin, Mark Nganga, Amos Omondi

Overview of this book

After a brief history of Python and key differences between Python 2 and Python 3, you'll understand how Python has been used in applications such as YouTube and Google App Engine. As you work with the language, you'll learn about control statements, delve into controlling program flow and gradually work on more structured programs via functions. As you settle into the Python ecosystem, you'll learn about data structures and study ways to correctly store and represent information. By working through specific examples, you'll learn how Python implements object-oriented programming (OOP) concepts of abstraction, encapsulation of data, inheritance, and polymorphism. You'll be given an overview of how imports, modules, and packages work in Python, how you can handle errors to prevent apps from crashing, as well as file manipulation. By the end of this book, you'll have built up an impressive portfolio of projects and armed yourself with the skills you need to tackle Python projects in the real world.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)
Python Fundamentals
Preface

Tuple Syntax


The main advantages of using tuples, rather than lists, are as follows:

  • They are better suited for use with different (heterogeneous) data types.

  • Tuples can be used as a key for a dictionary (we'll see dictionaries in the next chapter). This is due to the immutable nature of tuples.

  • Iterating over tuples is much faster than iterating over lists.

  • They are better for passing around data that you don't want changed.

A tuple consists of a number of individual values, separated by commas (just like lists). As with lists, a tuple can contain elements of different types. You create a tuple by placing all of the comma-separated values in parentheses, (), like this:

Python 3.6.1 (default, Dec 2015, 13:05:11)
[GCC 4.8.2] on linux
   pets = ('dog', 'cat', 'parrot')
   pets
=> ('dog', 'cat', 'parrot')
   type(pets)
=> <class 'tuple'>

The parentheses are optional, and you might as well create a tuple using just the comma-separated values, as follows:

Python 3.6.1 (default, Dec 2015,...