2 Base Syntax
This chapter will cover the basics of Base Python, that is the syntax of the Python Interpreter without any non-bundled packages.
Python does not automatically print the result of expressions. They must always be wrapped in a print() function call if you want them to be printed to the standard output.
2.1 Types
Python is “dynamically typed” which means that it can automatically infer the types of variables, and these types can change throughout the course of your script. This is similar to R, but very different to C.
To see the type of an object in Python, use type(var).
x = 0.5
print(type(x))## <class 'float'>2.3 Basic Operations
The standard operators are pretty straightforward (*, /, +, -), exponentiation is ** (i.e. 4**2) instead of ^. Assignment is = and function arguments are also passed via =. Equality tests use ==.
print(2**2 == 4)## Trueprint(2 == 3)## False2.4 Strings
Python accepts both single ' and double " quotes. You can concatenate strings using the + operator - cool! Python does not automatically cast between strings and other types (booooooo) which means you have to cast it explicitly when you want to build error messages, turn strings into numeric types, etc.
x = 0.75
msg = 'The value of x is ' + str(x)
print(msg)## The value of x is 0.752.5 Type Casting
Python uses sensibly named functions to cast between different types, and does not do this automatically. For example, print('Hello number ' + 3) will not work, as you need to explicitly cast like this: print('Hello number ' + str(3)).
The casting functions are named after the data types:
intstrfloatbool- etc
2.6 Lists / Arrays / Columns / Vectors
In R, if you define something using the inline notation c(1.73, 1.68, 1.71, 1.89) then you are creating an “atomic vector” (i.e. a vector containing only one type of data). In Python, if you define something using the inline notation [1.73, 1.68, 1.71, 1.89] then are creating a “list”. “List” seems to have the same meaning as R (can contain multiple types, can contain other lists, etc), so it is just the notation that differs. There is no base equivalent to the atomic vector in Python - it seems that this functionality is provided by the NumPy Array.
my_list = ['1', 2, 3.0, 'd']
print(my_list)## ['1', 2, 3.0, 'd']You can also put lists inside lists:
my_nested_list = [["Hello", 1],["World", 2]]
print(my_nested_list)## [['Hello', 1], ['World', 2]]2.7 Indexing
Python uses 0-based indexing, whereas R uses 1-based indexing. If you want to select the 4th element in a vector, you would use index 4 in R (1,2,3,4), but index 3 in Python (0,1,2,3). The syntax for this in Python is the same as R - var[3].
Negative indices work very differently! In R, a negative index will return the vector with the specified item removed i.e. if you use var[-3] then you will get the vector without the third element. In Python however, it will select a single element by counting backwards. An index of -1 returns the final element (because you start at index zero and take one step backwards), -2 returns the second last element, and so on.
Slicing works even more strangely in Python. Whilst in R, using index var[3:5] will return the 3rd, 4th and 5th elements, in Python this will only return the 4th and 5th elements. This is because the syntax in Python is [inclusive:exclusive] and because of 0-based indexing.
One nice shortcut in Python (not present in R) is the [:n] and [n:] syntax. In the first case, the blank argument to the infix operator : is interpreted as a 0, and in the second case the blank argument is interpreted as the length of the vector (so that it will select the rest of the vector).
Python lists can be joined using the + operator.
example = [0,1,2] + [3,4]
print(example)## [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]Deleting elements is a bit different - you need to use del(var[3]) to remove an element from the list.
del(example[3])
print(example)## [0, 1, 2, 4]2.8 Copy / Modify
R has a nice “copy on modify” behaviour, which means that when you assign a list (or anything else) to a new variable, it doesn’t copy it until you make a change, at which point it saves a modified copy of that object. In Python however, the behaviour is different for different data types (booooooo). Lists, for example, are copied by reference, which means that changing an element in a “copied” list also changes the same element in the original list. To get around this you need to do something like y = list(x) or y = x[:] to explicitly copy all items from the list.
x = [1,2,3,4]
y = x
y[2] = 5
print(x)## [1, 2, 5, 4]x = [1,2,3,4]
y = list(x); y[2] = 5
z = x[:]; z[2] = 5
print(x)## [1, 2, 3, 4]2.9 Grouping
Python does not use braces - it uses indentation to group blocks of code. This is supposed to improve readability, but in practice it can be super messy. Can use spaces or tabs.
if condition :
execute this
and this because we're still indented
execute this regardless because we've got no indent2.10 Missing values and extreme numbers
In R, you have NA (missing) and NULL (undefined, empty), NaN (not a number), and Inf (infinity). In Python, you have None, and numpy has numpy.nan (not a number). There is no equivalent to Inf, as it just raises an error.
2.11 Booleans
In R, booleans are defined as TRUE and FALSE, with the shortcut T and F also commonly used. In Python, the booleans are simply defined as True and False.
Boolean arithmetic is performed using the and and or keywords, corresponding to the & and | operators in R. You can also use the not operator, which corresponds to ! in R.
Booleans are a bit harder to work with when you’re using numpy arrays, because the base logic keywords are not vectorised. To work with numpy arrays, you have to use the built in numpy functions:
np.logical_and()
np.locical_or()
np.locical_not()2.12 Dictionaries
Dictionaries don’t really exist in R, because the dictionary functionality (named elements) is available in both atomic vectors and lists. To create a dictionary in Python, you can use the following syntax:
world = {"afghanistan":30.55, "albania":2.77, "algeria":39.21}You can also do nested dictionaries - the keys are somewhat limited (they can be any immutable data type) but the values can be dictionaries if you want.
You can retrieve the keys from a dictionary using the .keys() method, e.g. world.keys(). You can select elements from a dictionary using the key inside square brackets, e.g. world['albania']
print(world.keys())## dict_keys(['afghanistan', 'albania', 'algeria'])print(world['albania'])## 2.77In many ways, dictionaries are like named lists in R. You can add elements to a dictionary using world['italy'] = 59.83 for example.
You can also interrogate whether a key exists in a dictionary using the in operator, which is like the %in% operator from R. For example:
print('albania' in world)## Trueprint('moon' in world)## False2.13 Functions
Functions are defined using the keyword def, like so:
def repeat(s, exclaim):
"""
Returns the string 's' repeated 3 times.
If exclaim is true, add exclamation marks.
"""
result = s + s + s
if exclaim:
result = result + '!!!'
return result
print(repeat('ha', exclaim = True))## hahaha!!!A return statement appears to be compulsory in Python functions, unlike in R where it is not strictly required. Like in all other scripting languages, functions must be defined before they are used (i.e. earlier in the script). Importing modules is probably a sensible way to manage this.
Function arguments look to be specified and evaluated similarly to R - you name the arguments and you can give them default values in the definition statement. When using the function you can resolve arguments by name or by order (but you cannot mix the two approaches), and there is no partial matching.
2.13.1 Lambda functions
These are just like anonymous functions in R - you can define them inline and don’t necessarily need to provide a name. Useful to save typing, but also useful in the map() and functools.reduce() functions.
my_glue_function = lambda a, b: a + ' ' + b + "!"
print(my_glue_function("Hello", "World"))## Hello World!2.14 Methods
Python is a proper object-oriented (OO) language, unlike R which is a functional language with three different OO systems built on top of it. The Python model for objects and methods is most similar to R’s Reference Classes (RC) framework. In Python, methods belong to objects (you invoke them using object.method() notation), and behave according to the type of the object. Some methods can mutate the object they belong to, others do not, and there is no easy way to tell the difference without reading the documentation.
2.15 Namespaces
If you have a module called binky.py and a function in that module called foo() then the fully qualified function name is binky.foo(). This is sort of like R’s :: notation (e.g. dplyr::select()) except that Python modules seem to typically be more light weight than R packages.
2.2 Comments
Comments start with the hash
#, just like in R and Bash. You can also use docstrings as the first statement inside a function - this is written like a multi-line comment which becomes the documentation for the function.