MakingLibrarySoftware1

1. Installing Python 3.2 & Mercurial :: InstallingPython

2. Python Overview

a pretty ok tutorial :: a byte of python
a not great tutorial: python tutorial
strings, lists, & dictionaries

Copy this David Foster Wallace story into your interpreter

dfw = A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Man

Choose a word in the story; how many times does it occur?

words = dfw.split()
words.count('word')

How many words are there in the story?

len(dfw.split())

How many letters?

len(dfw)

Replace all instances of "he" with "He".

dfw.replace(' he ', ' He ')

nl = []
for word in dfw.split():
    if word == 'he':
        word = 'He'
    nl.append(word)
new_dfw = ' '.join(nl)

Turn all the sentences into exclamations.

dfw.replace('.','!')

Sort each of the words from the story alphabetically.

l = dfw.split()
l.sort()

sorted(dfw.lower().split())

Now sort them by word length.

l.sort(key=len)

sorted(dfw.split(), key=len)

Write definitions for as many of the words as you can. Now go through the story and replace each word with its definition.

d = {' he ':' boy ', 'witticism':'a funny and cynical turn of phrase'}
for word, definition in d.items():
    dfw = dfw.replace(word, definition)

other things that came up

print() – writes a string to your screen documentation

>>> print('the quick brown fox jumped...')
the quick brown fox jumped...

for, while, if documentation

>>> for i in [1,2,3,4]:
...     if i == 3:
...             print(i)
...     else:
...             print('not 3.')
...
not 3.
not 3.
3
not 3.


>>> dave = 'hungry'
>>> n = 0
>>> while dave == 'hungry':
...     print('feeding dave')
...     n += 1
...     if n == 5:
...             dave = 'full'
...
feeding dave
feeding dave
feeding dave
feeding dave
feeding dave
>>> print(dave)
full

str.format() – formatting a string documentation (this is good stuff!)

>>> 'hello, {0}'.format('dave')
'hello, dave'
>>> 'Coordinates: {latitude}, {longitude}'.format(latitude='37.24N', longitude='-115.81W')
'Coordinates: 37.24N, -115.81W'
>>> '{:^30}'.format('centered')
'           centered           '