2.1 Introduction

Just printing things is not that interesting, what you really want to do with a computer program is manipulate data. This is why variables are so important - they allow you to assign information to a name that you can re-use later on.

In this section we will introduce the basic types of variables and how you can manipulate them. Just to get started, we give an overview of the different built-in data types that are present in Python and which you can assign to a variable. Although this variety of data types exist, not all of them will be discussed in this course.

• Text type: str
• Numeric types: int, float, complex
• Sequence types: list, tuple, range
• Mapping types: dict
• Set types: set, frozenset
• Boolean types: bool
• Binary types: bytes, bytearray, memoryview

In this section, we will cover the text type, numeric types (complex are out of scope) and booleans.

Operators can be anything from:

• Arithmetic: additions, substractions, multiplications, divisions, remainders and power
• Comparison: equal to, not equal to, greater than, less than, etc.
• Logical: AND, OR and NOT used for conditional statements
• Identity: is, is not

Note:
This section doesn’t really include any exercises. Try to follow and code along while we scroll through the examples so you start to have a feeling of it.

2.2 Strings

We already saw strings in the previous section. You can assign a string to a variable like this:

# Assign the sequence AGAATCGATACGA to a variable and print the variable.  
mySequence = "AGAATCGATACGA"
print(mySequence)

What happens here is that you assign a value: “AGAATCGATACGA” to a variable: mySequence and then print it out. You can now keep on using mySequence throughout your program. Note that mySequence is not quoted because it is now part of the program, try this for example:

# Repeat the above, but this time put the variable in quotation marks when you put in the print statement and see what happens
mySequence = "AGAATCGATACGA"
print("mySequence")

You will now still assign the value “AGAATCGATACGA” to the variable mySequence, but because of the quotes you then print off the string “mySequence”, not the variable.

You can assign strings in the following ways:

myString1 = "Hello world!"
myString2 = 'Hello sun!'
myString3 = """Hello
universe."""
print(myString1)
print(myString2)
print(myString3)

The single and double quotes are essentially the same. If you use triple double quotes - “”” - you can assign a string over multiple lines.

# Try assigning a string over multiple lines without using the triple double quotes and see what happens.
myString = "Hello
universe."

This will give a SyntaxError, as Python ‘reads’ each line separately, and it doesn’t find the ending (on the first line) and starting (on the second line) quote. Using the escape codes, you can however do the following:

# Try to print two words in two different lines without using three "" marks. 
myString = "Hello\nuniverse."
myString

2.3 Strings from user input

Python provides a very simple way to get user input. This input is always returned as a string, so try the following:

# Use input to ask for a sequence string, then print the input sequence
mySequence = input("Give me a sequence:")
print(mySequence)

2.4 Integers

Integers are non-decimal numbers. Python will recognize numbers in the code automatically, so you can do:

# Assign integer 5 to a variable myInteger
myInteger = 5
print(myInteger)

As described in the introduction, you can also do standard mathematical operations on integers. Mathematical operations are even possible within a print statement.

5 + 5  # Addition

5 - 8  # Subtraction

2 * 5  # Multiplication

4 / 2  # Division

5 % 2  # Modulus, remainder of division

2 ** 3 # Power

It doesn’t matter if you use variables or integers for this:

x = 5
y = 2

x + 5  # Addition

x - 8  # Subtraction

y * x  # Multiplication

4 / y  # Division

5 % y  # Modulus, remainder of division

y ** 3 # Power

In order to print an integer inside a string, you could simply use the following expression in which the string is separated from the integer with a comma.

firstResult = 5 * 4
print("The result is", firstResult,".")

However, there is another way using the .format() method. The format method allows you to change the lay-out of the output that it prints. We will use it a lot during this course, here you see it in the most simplest form. The variable that you want to print is given within the rounded brackets of the format method, and the location in the string to where it prints is given with curly brackets:

firstResult = (5 * 4)
print(firstResult)
print("The result of the first calculation is {}.".format(firstResult))

secondResult = (5 * (4 + 3) - 2)
print(secondResult)
print("The result of the second calculation is {}.".format(secondResult))

Note here the precedence of operations; * and / take precedence over + and -. You can use () to change the results.

2.5 Floats

Floats (floating point numbers) are decimal numbers that behave in the same way as integers, except that they are more accurate

# Assign float 5.5 to the myFloat variable
myFloat = 5.5 
myFloat

type(myFloat)

Mathematical operations are the same:

5.2 + 4.8  # Addition

5.2 - 8.3  # Subtraction

2.0 * 5.11212  # Multiplication

4.2 / 2.7  # Division

5.4 % 2.0  # Modulus, remainder of division

4 ** 0.5 # Power

Also floats can be incorporated in a string with the .format() statement. You can determine the number of characters before and after the decimal point as well, however we will cover this in the next section.

myFloat = 4545.4542244
print("Print the full float {},\ncut off decimals {:.2f},\nor determine the characters before the decimal {:10.1f}.".format(myFloat,myFloat,myFloat))

Note here that we put three formatting characters in the string; we then also need three values to print out.

2.6 Floats, integers and strings

You can also force a conversion between the different value types float, integers and strings with the str(), int() and float() conversions:

# Use the int() and float() statements to switch the value types and print out the values. Do you notice any differences?
myFloat = 4.5
myFloat

int(myFloat) # Note that it will print the result of the operation; myFloat remains an integer!

myInteger = 5
myInteger

myOtherFloat = float(myInteger)
myOtherFloat

The same is possible to convert between strings with str(), you can also convert strings back to integers and floats but only if the content of the string is an integer or float:

# Convert a float and an integer to a string with the str() statement 
myFloat = 4.5
myFloatString = str(myFloat)
myInteger = 5
myIntegerString = str(myInteger)
print("My strings are {} and {}".format(myFloatString,myIntegerString))
print("My string converted to integer is {}".format(int(myIntegerString)))
print("My string converted to float is {}".format(float(myFloatString)))

hands_on Exercise 2.6.1

Write a program where you ask for a number, convert it to an integer, and print out in a formatted string what your number is.

solution Solution

 myFloatString = input("Give me a number:")
 myInteger = int(float(myFloatString))
 print("My number in integer form is {}".format(myInteger))

You can also add, substract, divide and multiple a variable by a number or other variable directly. These are the so-called assignment operators.

myFloat = 6
myString = "ABC"
 
myFloat += 5   # Same as myFloat = myFloat + 5
print(myFloat)
 
myString += "DE"  # Addition works for strings as well
print(myString)
 
myFloat -= 5   # Same as myFloat = myFloat - 5
print(myFloat)
 
myFloat /= 2   # Same as myFloat = myFloat / 2
print(myFloat)
 
myFloat *= 2   # Same as myFloat = myFloat * 2
print(myFloat)

Finally, you can check what data type a variable is by using type():

myInteger = -6
myFloat = 5.22
myString = "Text!"
 
print(myInteger, type(myInteger))
print(myFloat, type(myFloat))
print(myString, type(myString))

Note here that you can print multiple values by using a comma in between the values.

hands_on Exercise 2.6.2

See what happens if you try to print a float as an integer, and an integer as a string.

solution Solution

 myFloat = 11.4
 myIntFloat = int(myFloat)
 print("My float as integer {}".format(myIntFloat)) 
 #This works
 myInt  = 12
 print("My integer as string {}".format(str(myInt)))
 #This works as well... but:
 myString = "Hello"
 print("My string as float {}".format(float(myString)))
 #will fail and give a TypeError - Python cannot convert "aa" into a float.

2.7 Booleans

Finally, there are the boolean variables True and False. Python returns booleans when comparing values. In the code below python checks whether the comparison is TRUE, when this is the case it will print out the boolean True. In order to do a comparison, we use comparison operators like ==, >, <, <=, >=, !=

myBoolean = True
myBoolean

type(myBoolean)

myInteger = 5
myInteger == 6   # This means 'is myInteger equal to 6?'

myInteger < 6    # This means 'is myInteger smaller than 6?'

myInteger > 6    # This means 'is myInteger greater than 6?'

myInteger <= 6   # This means 'is myInteger smaller or equal to 6?'

myInteger >= 6   # This means 'is myInteger greater or equal to 6?'

myInteger != 6   # This means 'is myInteger not equal to 6?'

Similarly to comparison operators, you can also use is and not which are the identity operators:

myInteger = 5

myInteger is 6    # Same as ==

myInteger is not 6   # Same as !=

not myInteger > 6    # Same as <=

If you want to combine multiple comparisons, it is possible to use the logical operators and and or. With the and operator both comparisons have to be True for the result to be True. With the or operator, only one has to be True for the result to be True.

x = 5
y = 6

x == 5 and y > 2    # Both have to be True for the result to be True

x != 5 or y > 2     # Only one has to be True for the result to be True

2.8 Nothing

Finally, we highlight the None value which is comparable to other program’s null values. In the code below we show that None, which you could interpret as nothing, is still something else than the value 0 or e.g. an empty string.

myNothing = None
myNothing

type(myNothing)

type(None)

0 == None

"" == None

However, the opposite of None is still True.

not None

Really 0 is still an integer, “” a string, so None is really nothing:

keypoints Key points

• We've assessed the string, integers, float and boolean data-types of Python
• We compared variables and their values with operators
• We know how to use .format() in its most basic form

Useful literature

Further information, including links to documentation and original publications, regarding the tools, analysis techniques and the interpretation of results described in this tutorial can be found here.