Opening a file in Python is actually very simple. It follows the general form of: The file_variable is the variable we will use to reference the file in the Python code. The filename includes the whole file, including path (if you are not in the same folder), and extension. The mode specifies whether you are…
Now a function can read a variable from the main program inside a function, but it cannot write to that variable. This can cause some confusion, and rightly so. So lets not do that. Instead, we can change how a function behaves by passing values to a function. These values are called parameters. An argument…
Functions allow us to write several lines of code, that may need to be called at different times in our code, and to call all of the code, with using just the function name, and some parameters. Sometimes functions are used to make code more readable, calling a function by a logical name, rather than…
When you work with Loops, you’ll find life is a bit easier if you know some of these tips. Simplifying Math The book calls this first tip Augmented Operators, other languages refer to it as shortcut math. Either way, the end result is the same. Quite often you will be working with a variable and…
We’ve looked at decision statements in flowcharts and pseudo-code before. Now we want to look at how to build them in Python. Decisions are very important because they allow you to skip over a section of code that isn’t relevant to you. In its most basic format, an if statement in Python follows the following…
We’re also going to look at some initial things that help make coding in Python easier. Multi-line lines of code The first issue is what to do if a line of code starts getting really long. In Python, by default, the line of code ends when you move to a new line. However, you can…
Over my 25-30+ years of coding (including hobby stuff as a teenager), I’ve made my fair share of coding mistakes. In fact, everyone who has ever written code before has written lots of errors. That’s why we test so much. Even today, I still make mistakes, many of them the same as you. The difference…
We want to look at performing some simple math in Python. To do so, we’ll first look at our last example from our introduction to Python examples. We took in a number, but in reality, we took in a string that had numbers in it. If we want to treat the value as a number,…
