Introduction to Data Analysis

with Python and R

(CSEN 3135)
Module 1: Introduction to Python
Lecture 4: 26/10/2021

Dr. Debranjan Sarkar

Type conversion
• str(69) = “69” # conversion from integer to string
• int(“854”) = 854 # conversion from string to integer
• int(“3A”) => Error # string is not a decimal number
• range(0,n) generates the sequence 0, 1, 2, …, n-1
• Sequence produced by the range() function is not of type list
• So we use list function to convert this sequence into type list
• list(range(0,5)) = [0,1,2,3,4]
• list function is also used to convert a string into list
• list(‘abcdef’) will produce the list [‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’, ‘d’, ‘e’, ‘f’]
Arrays 57C A[0]
57E A[1]
580 A[2]
• A sequence of values can be stored as an array or as a list 582 A[3]
• Features of an array: 584 A[4]
• Contiguous area of memory for storing the consecutive elements of an array
• Elements are of uniform type (int/ float etc.) so that each element occupies same
number of bytes (or words) in memory
• Typically size of the sequence (number of elements) is fixed in advance
• Array indexing is fast and accessing ith sequence for all i, takes constant time
• Offset is computed from the start of memory block
• Word address of the 1st element of the array = s, each element requires n words (say)
• Then the word address of the ith element of the array is (s + (i-1)*n)
• In the above example, s = 57C, n = 2 => word address of the 4th element = 57C + (4-1)*2 = 582
• Insertion of an element between seq[n] and seq[n+1] is expensive
• Deletion of an element in the sequence is also expensive
 57C A[0]
57E A[4]
Lists 580 A[2]
582 A[1]
• Features of a list: 584 A[3]

• Consecutive elements need not be stored in contiguous area of memory

• It is like data structure linked-list where in each element there is a pointer to
the next element and for the last element, the pointer to the next element is
Null
• Elements of a list may be non-uniform type (int/ string etc.) and have flexible
size
• Size of the sequence (number of elements) is not to be fixed in advance, as
the last element of a list contains a Null pointer to indicate that this is the last
element
• To access the ith sequence, i number of links have to be traversed and so the
time is proportional to i
• Insertion and deletion of an element is easy and less expensive
Array vs List
• Exchange Operations (exchange the values of seq[i] and seq[j])
• Takes constant time in array`
• Takes linear time in list
• Delete seq[i] or insert value v after seq[i]
• Constant time in list as we are already at seq[i] and we only have to shift
some links
• Linear time in array as the elements before or after the seq[i] are to be
shifted
• So the algorithms for a sequence of values represented as an array
may not work well for data structure list
Control Flow : Conditionals
• Statements of a Python program are executed normally from top to bottom
• Control flow determines the order in which the statements are to be executed
• A common task is to choose between two or more alternative possibilities
depending upon the outcome of a test
• Each alternative is called a conditional
• Conditional execution (if)
if condition: # condition returns True or False, ‘:’ indicates end of condition
Statement1
Statement2 # Uniform indentation demarcates the body of ‘if’
Statement3 # No curly brackets (braces) required as in C
• Statements 1 and 2 are executed when the condition is True
• Statement 3 is executed unconditionally (i.e. irrespective of whether condition is
True or False)
Control Flow: Conditionals
• Conditional execution (if-else)
if condition:
Statement1
……..
else:
Statement2
……..
Statement3
…………
• Statement 1 … are executed when the condition is True
• Statement 2 … are executed when the condition is False
• Shortcut for conditions
• If a number is 0, it is as good as False
• Empty sequence (Null string “” or empty list []) is treated as False
• Everything else is True
• Example: if m != 0: is equivalent to if m:
Control Flow: Conditionals
• Multiway branching (if-elif-else)
if condition1:
Statement1
………………
elif condition2:
Statement2
………………
elif condition3:
Statement3
………………
else:
Statement4
………………
Control Flow (Loops or Iteration)
• Repeat some statements for a fixed number of times
• for i in [1,3,5,7,9]:
sq = i * i # indentation for the body of the ‘for’ statement
double = i * 2
print(‘i = ‘, i, ‘square = ‘, sq, ‘double = ‘, double)
• for i in [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]: for i in range(10):
…………… ……………
• range(m,n) produces the sequence m,(m+1),(m+2), …, (n-1)
• range(n) produces the sequence 0, 1, 2, …, (n-1)
• range(m,n,k) produces the sequence m,(m+k),(m+2k), …, (m + l.k) such that
m + lk < n <= m + (l+1)k
• When k is negative, there will be a countdown
• range(m,n,-1) produces the sequence m,(m-1),(m-2), …, (n + 1) [m > n]
More on range function
• Example: Find the sum of first 10 natural numbers
• n = 10
• sum = 0
• for i in range(1,n+1):
• sum = sum + i
• print(“sum = “, sum)
• ==================================
• # Compare range and list
• Is range(0,5) == [0,1,2,3,4] ?
• Answer: In Python 2 ➔ YES In Python 3 ➔ NO
• list(range(0,5)) == [0,1,2,3,4] in Python 3 # Type conversion
Control Flow (while)
• Number of iterations of a loop is not known in advance
• Repeat some statements until a condition becomes False
• i=0
• while i <= 9:
• sq = i * i
• double = i * 2
• print(‘i = ‘, i, ‘square = ‘, sq, ‘double = ‘, double)
• i=i+1 # indentation for the body of the ‘while’ statement
• Condition should be made False inside the body of the statement,
otherwise the loop will become an infinite loop
Thank you