Python Basics

Comments

You can write text that the program will ignore by beginning the line with a #, this helps with reminding you what certain code does or for explaining purposes.

 
# This is a comment 

Data Types

Variables can store data of different types, and different types can do different things.

Python has the following data types built-in by default, in these categories:
Text Type: str
Numeric Types: int, float, complex
Sequence Types: list, tuple, range
Mapping Type: dict
Set Types: set, frozenset
Boolean Type: bool
Binary Types: bytes, bytearray, memoryview

We will go more in-depth on some of these types in the next few sections.

You can print the data type of a variable with the type() function:

x = 5 
 print(type(x)) 

Strings

Strings are surrounded by either single quotation marks, or double quotation marks.:

  
x = "hello" 
y = 'hello'
# single quotations and double quotation marks are the same
x == y # returns True 

You can assign a multiline string to a variable by using three quotes:

 
x = """The FitnessGram Pacer test is a multistage aerobic capacity test that progressively gets more difficult as it continues. The 20 meter Pacer test will begin in 30 seconds."""  

You can check the length of a string using the len() function:

  
x = "hello" 
print(len(text)) # returns 5

Numbers

There are 2 primary, int and float

 
x = 2   # int
y = 2.8 # float 

To verify the type of an object in Python, use the type() function:

 
print(type(x)) 
print(type(y)) 

Int, or integers, are whole numbers, positive or negative, without decimals.

Float is a number, positive or negative, containing one or more decimals.

Both strings and numbers are built-in data types.