MINN2020A: COMPUTER PROGRAMMING FOR

MINING

Data types
“Education is the passport to the future, for
tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it
today.” —Malcolm X
Ms Milka Madahana
x77572
Milka.Madahana@wits.ac.za
School of Mining Engineering
Data Types
Data Types
• In programming, data type is an important concept.
• 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:

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Data Types

• Text Type: str

• Numeric Types: int, float, complex
• Sequence Types: list, tuple, range
• Mapping Type: dict

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Data types

Set Types: set, frozenset

Boolean Type: bool
Binary Types: bytes, bytearray, memoryview
None Type: NoneType

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Data type
• You can get the data type of any object by using the
type() function:
Print the data type of the variable x:

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Setting the Data Type

Setting the Data Type

• In Python, the data type is set when you assign a value
to a variable(s)

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Data types
x = "Hello World" str
x = 20 int
x = 20.5 float

x = 1j complex
x = ["apple", "banana", "cherry"] list
x = ("apple", "banana", "cherry") Tuple
x = range(6) Range
x = {"name" : "John", "age" : 36} Dict

x = {"apple", "banana", "cherry"} Set

x = frozenset({"apple", "banana", "cherry"}) frozenset
x = True bool
x = b"Hello" bytes
x = bytearray(5) bytearray
x = memoryview(bytes(5)) memoryview

x = None NoneType

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Setting the Specific Data Type
• If you want to specify the data type, you can use the
following constructor functions

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Numbers
Python Numbers
There are three numeric types in Python:
• int
• float
• Complex
Variables of numeric types are created when you assign a
value to them:

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Data types
• To verify the type of any object in Python, use the type()
function:

Int
Int, or integer, is a whole number, positive or negative,
without decimals, of unlimited length.

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Floating Numbers
Float, or "floating point number" is a number, positive or negative, containing
one or more decimals

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Float can also be scientific numbers with an "e" to indicate the power of 10.

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Complex

Complex numbers are written with a "j" as the imaginary part:

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Type conversion
Type Conversion
• You can convert from one type to another with the int(),
float(), and complex() methods:

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Random Numbers
Random Numbers
• Python does not have a random() function to make a
random number, but Python has a built-in module called
random that can be used to make random numbers:
Example
• Import the random module, and display a random
number between 1 and 9:

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Casting- Specify a Variable Type
Specify a Variable Type

There may be times when you want to specify a type on to a variable. This
can be done with casting. Python is an object-orientated language, and as
such it uses classes to define data types, including its primitive types.

Casting in python is therefore done using constructor functions:

• int() - constructs an integer number from an integer literal, a float literal

(by removing all decimals), or a string literal (providing the string
represents a whole number)
• float() - constructs a float number from an integer literal, a float literal or a
string literal (providing the string represents a float or an integer)
• str() - constructs a string from a wide variety of data types, including
strings, integer literals and float literals

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Integers, floats and strings

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Python Strings
• Strings in python are surrounded by either single quotation
marks, or double quotation marks.
• 'hello' is the same as "hello".
• You can display a string literal with the print() function

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Assign String to a Variable

Assign String to a Variable

• Assigning a string to a variable is done with the variable
name followed by an equal sign and the string:

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Multiline Strings

Multiline Strings
• You can assign a multiline string to a variable by using
three quotes:
• You can use three double quotes:

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Strings are arrays
Strings are Arrays
• Like many other popular programming languages,
strings in Python are arrays of bytes representing
unicode characters.
• However, Python does not have a character data type, a
single character is simply a string with a length of 1.
• Square brackets can be used to access elements of the
string.

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• Get the character at position 1 (remember that the first
character has the position 0):

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Looping Through a string

Looping Through a String

• Since strings are arrays, we can loop through the
characters in a string, with a for loop.
• Loop through the letters in the word "Engineering":

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String Length

String Length
• To get the length of a string, use the len() function.
• The len() function returns the length of a string:

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Check String

Check String
• To check if a certain phrase or character is present in a
string, we can use the keyword in.
• Check if "free" is present in the following text:

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• Use it in an if statement:
• Print only if "free" is present:

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Check if NOT
• To check if a certain phrase or character is NOT present
in a string, we can use the keyword not in

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• Use it in an if statement:

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Slicing

Slicing
• You can return a range of characters by using the slice
syntax.
• Specify the start index and the end index, separated by a
colon, to return a part of the string
• Get the characters from position 2 to position 5 (not
included):

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Slice from Start

Slice From the Start

• By leaving out the start index, the range will start at the
first character:
• Get the characters from the start to position 5 (not
included):

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Negative Indexing
Slice To the End
• By leaving out the end index, the range will go to the
end:
Get the characters from position 2, and all the way to the
end:

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Negative Indexing
• Use negative indexes to start the slice from the end of the
string:
• Get the characters:
• From: "o" in "World!" (position -5)
• To, but not included: "d" in "World!" (position -2):

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Modify Strings

• Python has a set of built-in methods that you can use on

strings.
Upper Case
The upper() method returns the string in upper case:

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Modify Strings

Lower Case
The lower() method returns the string in lower case:

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Modify Strings
Remove Whitespace

Whitespace is the space before and/or after the actual text, and very often
you want to remove this space.

The strip() method removes any whitespace from the beginning or the end:

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Modify Strings

Replace String
• The replace() method replaces a string with another
string:

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Modify Strings

Split String
• The split() method returns a list where the text between
the specified separator becomes the list items.
• The split() method splits the string into substrings if it
finds instances of the separator:

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String Concatenation

String Concatenation
• To concatenate, or combine, two strings you can use the
+ operator.
• Merge variable a with variable b into variable c:

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String Concatenation

To add a space between them, add a " ":

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Format Strings

String Format
• As we learned in the Python Variables chapter, we cannot
combine strings and numbers like this:

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Format Strings

• But we can combine strings and numbers by using the format()

method!
• The format() method takes the passed arguments, formats them, and
places them in the string where the placeholders {} are:
• Use the format() method to insert numbers into strings:

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Format strings

• The format() method takes unlimited number of arguments, and are

placed into the respective placeholders:

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Format Strings

• You can use index numbers {0} to be sure the arguments

are placed in the correct placeholders:

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Escape characters

Escape Character
• To insert characters that are illegal in a string, use an
escape character.
• An escape character is a backslash \ followed by the
character you want to insert.
• An example of an illegal character is a double quote
inside a string that is surrounded by double quotes:

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Escape Strings

• You will get an error if you use double quotes inside a

string that is surrounded by double quotes:
Example

• To fix this problem, use the escape character \":

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Escape Strings

• The escape character allows you to use double quotes

when you normally would not be allowed:

• Other escape characters used in Python are given in the

slide to follow

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Escape characters

Code Result

\' Single Quote

\\ Backslash

\n New Line

\r Carriage Return

\t Tab

\b Backspace

\f Form Feed

\ooo Octal value

\xhh Hex value

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String Methods

String Methods
• Python has a set of built-in methods that you can use on
strings.
• Note: All string methods return new values. They do not
change the original string.
• Note:
A printed list of string methods will be issued out in class

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Data type: Booleans

• Booleans represent one of two values: True or False.

• Boolean Values
• In programming you often need to know if an expression is True or
False.
• You can evaluate any expression in Python, and get one of two
answers, True or False.
• When you compare two values, the expression is evaluated and
Python returns the Boolean answer:

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Boolean

• When you run a condition in an if statement, Python

returns True or False:
• Print a message based on whether the condition is True
or False:

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Boolean

Evaluate Values and Variables

• The bool() function allows you to evaluate any value,
and give you True or False in return,
• Evaluate a string and a number:

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Boolean

• Evaluate two variables:

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Boolean

Most Values are True

• Almost any value is evaluated to True if it has some sort
of content.
• Any string is True, except empty strings.
• Any number is True, except 0.
• Any list, tuple, set, and dictionary are True, except
empty ones.

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Boolean

The following will return True:

• Some Values are False

• In fact, there are not many values that evaluate to False, except
empty values, such as (), [], {}, "", the number 0, and the value None.
And of course the value False evaluates to False.

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Boolean

The following will return False:

• One more value, or object in this case, evaluates to False,

and that is if you have an object that is made from a class
with a __len__ function that returns 0 or False:
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Boolean

Functions can Return a Boolean

You can create functions that returns a Boolean Value:

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Boolean

You can execute code based on the Boolean answer of a function:

Print "YES!" if the function returns True, otherwise print "NO!":

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Boolean

Python also has many built-in functions that return a boolean value, like
the isinstance() function, which can be used to determine if an object is of
a certain data type:

Check if an object is an integer or not:

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• Exercise
Go through the exercise uploaded on Ulwazi

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MINN2020A: COMPUTER PROGRAMMING FOR
MINING

THE END

Ms Milka Madahana
x77572
Milka.Madahana@wits.ac.za
School of Mining Engineering