DS4UX (Spring 2016)/Day 3 lecture

Review

Lists

• Use lists to store data where order matters.
• Lists are indexed starting with 0.

List initialization

>>> my_list = []
>>> my_list
[]
>>> your_list = ["a", "b", "c", 1, 2, 3]
>>> your_list
['a', 'b', 'c', 1, 2, 3]

Access and adding elements to a list

>>> len(my_list)
0
>>> my_list[0]
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
IndexError: list index out of range
>>> my_list.append("Alice")
>>> my_list
['Alice']
>>> len(my_list)
1
>>> my_list[0]
'Alice'
>>> my_list.insert(0, "Amy")
>>> my_list
['Amy', 'Alice']

>>> my_list = ['Amy', 'Alice']
>>> 'Amy' in my_list
True
>>> 'Bob' in my_list
False

Changing elements in a list

>>> your_list = []
>>> your_list.append("apples")
>>> your_list[0]
'apples'
>>> your_list[0] = "bananas"
>>> your_list
['bananas']

Slicing lists

>>> her_list = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h']
>>> her_list[0]
'a'
>>> her_list[0:3]
['a', 'b', 'c']
>>> her_list[:3]
['a', 'b', 'c']
>>> her_list[-1]
'h'
>>> her_list[5:]
['f', 'g', 'h']
>>> her_list[:]
['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h']

sorting lists

Use .sort() to sort a list:

>>> names = ["Eliza", "Joe", "Henry", "Harriet", "Wanda", "Pat"]
>>> names.sort()
>>> names
['Eliza', 'Harriet', 'Henry', 'Joe', 'Pat', 'Wanda']

Getting the maximum and minimum values from a list

>>> numbers = [0, 3, 10, -1]
>>> max(numbers)
10
>>> min(numbers)
-1

Strings

Strings are a lot like lists

>>> my_string = "Hello World"
>>> my_string[0]
'H'
>>> my_string[:5]
'Hello'
>>> my_string[6:]
'World'
>>> my_string = my_string[:6] + "Jessica"
>>> my_string
'Hello Jessica'

>>> 'H' in my_string

True

String formatting

>>> x = 1
>>> y = 1.234
>>> z = True
>>> w = "elevator"
>>> all_together_now = "You can put ints like %d, floating point numbers like %f, boolean values like %s, and other strings like %s into a string without changing them to strings first!" % (x,y,z,w)

New concepts

Generating a list of numbers easily with range()

>>> range(5)
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
>>> for i in range(5):
...     print "Hi" * i
...

Hi
HiHi
HiHiHi
HiHiHiHi

The range() function returns a list of numbers. This is handy for when you want to generate a list of numbers on the fly instead of creating the list yourself.

>>> range(5)
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4]

Use range when you want to loop over a bunch of numbers in a list:

>>> numbers = range(5)
>>> for number in numbers:
...     print(number * number)
...
0
1
4
9
16

We could rewrite the above example like this:

>>> for number in range(5):
...     print(number * number)
...
0
1
4
9
16

Get user input with input()

>>> for i in range(100):
...     my_input = input("Please type something> ")
...     if input == "Quit":
...         print("Goodbye!")
...         break
...     else:
...         print("You said: " + my_input)
... 
Please type something> Hello
You said: Hello
Please type something> How are you?
You said: How are you?
Please type something> Quit
Goodbye!
>>>

Dictionaries

• Use dictionaries to store key/value pairs.
• Dictionaries do not guarantee ordering.
• A given key can only have one value, but multiple keys can have the same value.

Initialization

>>> my_dict = {}
>>> my_dict
{}
>>> your_dict = {"Alice" : "chocolate", "Bob" : "strawberry", "Cara" : "mint chip"}
>>> your_dict
{'Bob': 'strawberry', 'Cara': 'mint chip', 'Alice': 'chocolate'}

Adding elements to a dictionary

>>> your_dict["Dora"] = "vanilla"
>>> your_dict
{'Bob': 'strawberry', 'Cara': 'mint chip', 'Dora': 'vanilla', 'Alice': 'chocolate'}

Accessing elements of a dictionary

>>> your_dict["Alice"]
'chocolate'
>>> your_dict.get("Alice")
'chocolate'

>>> your_dict["Eve"]
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
KeyError: 'Eve'
>>> "Eve" in your_dict
False
>>> "Alice" in your_dict
True
>>> your_dict.get("Eve")
>>> person = your_dict.get("Eve")
>>> print(person)
None
>>> print(type(person))
<type 'NoneType'>
>>> your_dict.get("Alice")
'chocolate'

Changing elements of a dictionary

>>> your_dict["Alice"] = "coconut"
>>> your_dict
{'Bob': 'strawberry', 'Cara': 'mint chip', 'Dora': 'vanilla', 'Alice': 'coconut'}

Types

>>> type(my_dict)
<type 'dict'>

Exercise

Click here to download the scripts for this week's in-class exercise