Data Types in Python

Introduction to Data Types in Python

Any data must be stored in memory. For this we have many ways. For suppose if I want to store my address then I have to store it as alphanumeric characters. If I want to store my reg.no then I have to store it as numeric value. Likewise, in Python there are five standard data types. Those are:

• Numbers
• Strings
• Lists
• Tuples
• Dictionaries

Numbers

Numbers are one of the data types in Python. We can store numeric values.

Ex

>>> m=13 >>> print(m) 13 >>> print(type(m)) <class ‘int’> >>> 1+3.4 4.4 >>> int(7.4) 7 >>> float(5.2) 5.2 >>> 1.3+5.6 6.8999999999999995

Strings

In Python, strings are defined as a sequence of characters which are represented with single quotes or double quotes.

Ex

>>> s=”About strings” >>> print(s) About strings >>> s+s ‘About stringsAbout strings’ >>> s*3                                                                              #Prints string three times ‘About stringsAbout stringsAbout strings’ >>> s+” in Python”                                                         #String concatenation ‘About strings in Python’

Lists

Another data type in Python is ‘List’. A list is a collection of items separated by commas and enclosed within square brackets [ ].

Ex

>>> L=[“VMS”,526,16,13,21,7.9] >>> print(L) [‘VMS’, 526, 16, 13, 21, 7.9] >>> L*2 [‘VMS’, 526, 16, 13, 21, 7.9, ‘VMS’, 526, 16, 13, 21, 7.9] >>> L+L [‘VMS’, 526, 16, 13, 21, 7.9, ‘VMS’, 526, 16, 13, 21, 7.9] >>> L+[‘xyz’]                                                                    #Appends an item into existing list ‘L’ [‘VMS’, 526, 16, 13, 21, 7.9, ‘xyz’]

Tuples

A tuple is another data type in Python. Tuples are similar to the list. A tuple contains number of items separated by commas.

One could notice that a tuple is enclosed with ( ) and the items in it cannot be changed. Whereas a list is enclosed with [ ] and the items in it can be changed.

Ex

>>> T=(“Sudha”,13.26,”abc”,”y”) >>> print(T) (‘Sudha’, 13.26, ‘abc’, ‘y’) >>> T+T (‘Sudha’, 13.26, ‘abc’, ‘y’, ‘Sudha’, 13.26, ‘abc’, ‘y’) >>> T*2 (‘Sudha’, 13.26, ‘abc’, ‘y’, ‘Sudha’, 13.26, ‘abc’, ‘y’) >>> T+(“z”)                                                                           #Appending an item into existing list Traceback (most recent call last): File “<pyshell#35>”, line 1, in <module> T+(“z”) TypeError: can only concatenate tuple (not “str”) to tuple

You can observe that in the above example I tried to append an item “z” into tuple “T”. But it is not possible. Because we cannot add an item into tuple or alter the size of a tuple . But it is possible in the case of lists and you may go through in the example of list.

Dictionaries

A dictionary has key-value pairs. A key in dictionary may be of any Python type but numbers or strings are used usually. Whereas the value can be any object in Python. Dictionaries are enclosed by { }. The values can be assigned and will be accessed by using [ ].

We can access the keys and values by using a dot operator.

Ex

>>> D={ }                                                                                        #Creates an empty Dictionary >>> print(D) {} >>> D={“name”:”Sudhakar”,”Reg.no”:1316,”Dept.”:”CSE”}        #Appending key-values in to it >>> print(D) {‘Dept.’: ‘CSE’, ‘Reg.no’: 1316, ‘name’: ‘Sudhakar’} >>> D.keys( )                                                                                #Accessing keys dict_keys([‘Dept.’, ‘Reg.no’, ‘name’]) >>> D.values( )                                                                             #Accessing values. dict_values([‘CSE’, 1316, ‘Sudhakar’])

Note: Dictionaries concept does not concentrate on the order of elements. They are unordered.

In the next section we will discuss each of the above five data types briefly.