Python Programming

Unit - 1

Introduction

Python was developed by Guido van Rossum at the National Research

Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science in Netherlands during 1985-1990.
Python is derived from many other languages, including ABC, Modula-3, C, C + +,
Algol-68, SmallTalk, Unix shell and other scripting languages. Rossum was inspired
by Monty Python’s Flying Circus, a BBC Comedy series and he wanted the name of
his new language to be short, unique and mysterious. Hence he named it Python. It
is a general-purpose interpreted, interactive, object oriented, and high-level
programming language. Python source code is available under the GNU General
Public License (GPL) and it is now maintained by a core development team at the
National Research Institute.

FEATURES OF PYTHON

a) Simple and easy-to-learn – Python is a simple language with few keywords,

simple structure and its syntax is also clearly defined. This makes Python a
beginner’s language.

b) Interpreted and Interactive - Python is processed at runtime by the interpreter.

We need not compile the program before executing it. The Python prompt interact
with the interpreter to interpret the programs that you have written. Python has an
option namely interactive mode which allows interactive testing and debugging of
code.

c) Object-Oriented – Python supports Object Oriented Programming (OOP)

concepts that encapsulate code within objects. All concepts in OOPs like data hiding,
operator overloading, inheritance etc. can be well written in Python. It supports
functional as well as structured programming.
d) Portable - Python can run on a wide variety of hardware and software platforms
and has the same interface on all platforms. All variants of Windows, Unix, Linux and
Macintosh are to name a few.

e) Scalable - Python provides a better structure and support for large programs than
shell scripting. It can be used as a scripting language or can be compiled to
bytecode (intermediate code that is platform independent) for building large
applications.

f) Extendable - You can add low-level modules to the Python interpreter. These
modules enable programmers to add to or customize their tools to be more efficient.
It can be easily integrated with C, C + +, COM, ActiveX, CORBA, and Java.

g) Dynamic - Python provides very high-level dynamic data types and supports
dynamic type checking. It also supports automatic garbage collection.

h) GUI Programming and Databases - Python supports GUI applications that can
be created and ported to many libraries and windows systems, such as Windows
Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC), Macintosh, and the X Window system of Unix.
Python also provides interfaces to all major commercial databases.

i) Broad Standard Library - Python’s library is portable and cross platform

compatible on UNIX, Linux, Windows and Macintosh. This helps in the support and
development of a wide range of applications from simple text processing to browsers
and complex games.

Different Methods to Run Python

There are three different ways to start Python.

a) Using Interactive Interpreter

You can start Python from Unix, DOS, or any other system that provides you
a command-line interpreter or shell window. Get into the command line of Python.
For Unix/ Linux, you can get into interactive mode by typing $ python or python%.
For Windows/ Dos it is
 C: > python

$ python

Python 2.7.10 (default, Sep 27 2015, 18: 11: 38) [GCC 5.1.1 20150422 (Red
Hat 5.1.1-1)] on linux2 Type “help”, “copyright”, “credits” or “license” for more
information.

>>>

Type the following text at the Python prompt and press the Enter:

> > > print “Programming in Python!”

The result will be as given below

Programming in Python!

>>>

b) Script from the Command Line

This method invokes the interpreter with a script parameter which begins the
execution of the script and continues until the script is finished. When the script is
finished, the interpreter is no longer active. A Python script can be executed at
command line by invoking the interpreter on your application, as follows. For Unix/
Linux it is

$ python script.py

For Windows/ Dos it is

C: > python script.py

Python files have extension .py. Type the following source code in a first.py
file.

print “Programming in Python!”

Run this program as follows.

 $ python first.py

This produces the following result:

Programming in Python!

c) Integrated Development Environment

You can run Python from a Graphical User Interface (GUI) environment as
well, if you have a GUI application on your system that supports Python. IDLE is the
Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for UNIX and PythonWin is the first
Windows interface for Python.