Hello, World

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Subsections

What you should know
Printing
Expressions
Talking to humans (and other intelligent beings)
Examples
Exercises

What you should know

You should know how to edit programs in a text editor or IDLE, save them to disk (floppy or hard) and run them once they have been saved.

Printing

Programming tutorials since the beginning of time have started with a little program called Hello, World! So here it is:

print "Hello, World!"

If you are using the command line to run programs then type it in with a text editor, save it as hello.py and run it with ``python hello.py''

Otherwise go into IDLE, create a new window, and create the program as in section 1.4.

When this program is run here's what it prints:

Hello, World!

Now I'm not going to tell you this every time, but when I show you a program I recommend that you type it in and run it. I learn better when I type it in and you probably do too.

Now here is a more complicated program:

print "Jack and Jill went up a hill"
print "to fetch a pail of water;"
print "Jack fell down, and broke his crown,"
print "and Jill came tumbling after."

When you run this program it prints out:

Jack and Jill went up a hill
to fetch a pail of water;
Jack fell down, and broke his crown,
and Jill came tumbling after.

When the computer runs this program it first sees the line:

print "Jack and Jill went up a hill"

so the computer prints:

Jack and Jill went up a hill

Then the computer goes down to the next line and sees:

print "to fetch a pail of water;"

So the computer prints to the screen:

to fetch a pail of water;

The computer keeps looking at each line, follows the command and then goes on to the next line. The computer keeps running commands until it reaches the end of the program.

Expressions

Here is another program:

print "2 + 2 is", 2+2
print "3 * 4 is", 3 * 4
print 100 - 1, " = 100 - 1"
print "(33 + 2) / 5 + 11.5 = ",(33 + 2) / 5 + 11.5

And here is the output when the program is run:

2 + 2 is 4
3 * 4 is 12
99  = 100 - 1
(33 + 2) / 5 + 11.5 =  18.5

As you can see Python can turn your thousand dollar computer into a 5 dollar calculator.

Python has six basic operations for numbers:

Operation	Symbol	Example
Exponentiation	`**`	`5 ** 2 == 25`
Multiplication	`*`	`2 * 3 == 6`
Division	`/`	`14 / 3 == 4`
Remainder	`%`	`14 % 3 == 2`
Addition	`+`	`1 + 2 == 3`
Subtraction	`-`	`4 - 3 == 1`

Notice that division follows the rule, if there are no decimals to start with, there will be no decimals to end with. (Note: This will be changing in Python 2.3) The following program shows this:

print "14 / 3 = ",14 / 3
print "14 % 3 = ",14 % 3
print
print "14.0 / 3.0 =",14.0 / 3.0
print "14.0 % 3.0 =",14 % 3.0
print
print "14.0 / 3 =",14.0 / 3
print "14.0 % 3 =",14.0 % 3
print
print "14 / 3.0 =",14 / 3.0
print "14 % 3.0 =",14 % 3.0
print

With the output:

14 / 3 =  4
14 % 3 =  2

14.0 / 3.0 = 4.66666666667
14.0 % 3.0 = 2.0

14.0 / 3 = 4.66666666667
14.0 % 3 = 2.0

14 / 3.0 = 4.66666666667
14 % 3.0 = 2.0

Notice how Python gives different answers for some problems depending on whether or not there decimal values are used.

The order of operations is the same as in math:

parentheses ()
exponents **
multiplication *, division \, and remainder %
addition + and subtraction -

Talking to humans (and other intelligent beings)

Often in programming you are doing something complicated and may not in the future remember what you did. When this happens the program should probably be commented. A comment is a note to you and other programmers explaining what is happening. For example:

#Not quite PI, but an incredible simulation
print 22.0/7.0

Notice that the comment starts with a #. Comments are used to communicate with others who read the program and your future self to make clear what is complicated.

Examples

Each chapter (eventually) will contain examples of the programming features introduced in the chapter. You should at least look over them see if you understand them. If you don't, you may want to type them in and see what happens. Mess around them, change them and see what happens.

Denmark.py

print "Something's rotten in the state of Denmark."
print "                -- Shakespeare"

Output:

Something's rotten in the state of Denmark.
                -- Shakespeare

School.py

#This is not quite true outside of USA
# and is based on my dim memories of my younger years
print "Firstish Grade"
print "1+1 =",1+1
print "2+4 =",2+4
print "5-2 =",5-2
print
print "Thirdish Grade"
print "243-23 =",243-23
print "12*4 =",12*4
print "12/3 =",12/3
print "13/3 =",13/3," R ",13%3
print
print "Junior High"
print "123.56-62.12 =",123.56-62.12
print "(4+3)*2 =",(4+3)*2
print "4+3*2 =",4+3*2
print "3**2 =",3**2
print

Output:

Firstish Grade
1+1 = 2
2+4 = 6
5-2 = 3

Thirdish Grade
243-23 = 220
12*4 = 48
12/3 = 4
13/3 = 4  R  1

Junior High
123.56-62.12 = 61.44
(4+3)*2 = 14
4+3*2 = 10
3**2 = 9

Exercises

Write a program that prints your full name and your birthday as separate strings.

Write a program that shows the use of all 6 math functions.

Next: Who Goes There? Up: Non-Programmers Tutorial For Python Previous: Intro Contents

Josh Cogliati jjc@honors.montana.edu Wikibooks Version: Wikibooks Non-programmers Python Tutorial Contents