COMP1021

Introduction to Computer Science

Beginning to
Program Python

David Rossiter
 Outcomes
• After completing this presentation, you are
expected to be able to:
1. Use Python code to do simple text input and
output
2. Use variables to store things, such as text and
numbers
3. Demonstrate running Python code as a
program

COMP1021 Beginning to Program Python Page 2

 Input and Output

Input Python Code Output

• In this presentation • In this presentation

we’ll look at text input we’ll look at text output
• Later we will look at • Later we’ll look at
handling various other types some graphics and
of input such as mouse input music output

COMP1021 Beginning to Program Python Page 3

 Text Output
• Let’s do some simple text output
• Here is a line of Python code which prints
(i.e. output) a message:
print("It's a typhoon!")

• This is the print command • This is the message that we want to

that asks Python to show show on the screen
something on the screen • When you use text in Python code,
• You put the message you you need to enclose the text using a
want to show inside a pair pair of double-quotes, i.e. ""
of parentheses, i.e. ()
COMP1021 Beginning to Program Python Page 4
 Text Output
print("It's a typhoon!")
• If we type the code directly into the shell, it
immediately gets executed and the result is shown:

• You can tell Python to print anything you like

COMP1021 Beginning to Program Python Page 5
 Text Input
• Let’s do some simple text input
• Here is a line of Python code which shows a
message and lets the user enter something:
input("What is your name?")

• This is the input command • This is the message that we

which: want to show on the screen
• asks Python to show
something on the screen, and
• returns the thing that the user types

COMP1021 Beginning to Program Python Page 6

 Text Input
input("What is your name?")
• If we type this code directly into the shell, it is
immediately executed, the message is shown and
the result the user types is returned:
1. We give the
Python shell
this code
2. The Python
shell shows 3. The user
the text 4. The Python interpreter types in
returns the result of the some input
input, and shows it
COMP1021 Beginning to Program Python Page 7
 Remembering Things
• In the example we just looked at, whatever the
user typed is completely ‘forgotten’ after
Python has finished processing the input
command
• Although you can still see things on the screen,
Python doesn’t remember that
• It will be very useful if we have some way to
remember what the user types
• To do that we need to use a variable to store it

COMP1021 Beginning to Program Python Page 8

 Using a Variable “Dave”
Name
• You can think of a variable as a box
• Here is some code which stores whatever
text the user enters in a variable:
name=input("What is your name?")
1. We give the
Python
interpreter
2. The this code
Python
interpreter 3. The user
4. The Python interpreter stores the types in
shows the
input in the variable called ‘name’ some input
text
COMP1021 Beginning to Program Python Page 9
 Accessing the Variable
• If we want to use whatever is in the variable, we
simply use the name of the variable
• For example, let’s use print() to show what’s
in the variable:

• We could mix it with some text, like this:

or this:
 What About Entering Numbers?
• If we want to get a number from the user,
we can use the same input function input()
• However, input() always produces text
• You will encounter a problem if you try to treat
the variable as if it has a number, like this:
 Converting Text into a Number
• What we can do is to take the input from the user, and
then convert it to a number using int()
• int() means ‘convert this into an integer’
• After it has been converted, you can add, subtract,
multiply, etc, the number stored in the variable

Convert the text “100”

into an integer 100
 Generating a (Random) Number
• Sometimes it is useful to ask Python to give you
some random numbers
• There are several ways to do that in Python
• One of them is to use the random.randint()
command
• First, we need to use this code:
import random
• This code tells Python that we want to use a
command related to random numbers
COMP1021 Beginning to Program Python Page 13
 Generating a (Random) Number
• Then we can use random.randint() to generate
a random number within a particular range, like this:

• We will use this technique to generate random numbers

for games later
COMP1021 Beginning to Program Python Page 14
 Putting Lines of Code Together
• Typing lines of code in the shell is OK but you
may want to run the same lines of code many times
• You will go crazy if you have to keep typing them!
• It makes sense to put all the lines of code together
into a single file of Python code
• That file, usually containing many lines of code, is
called a program

COMP1021 Beginning to Program Python Page 15

 Making and Running a Program

Create the program

Save the program

Run the program

• When you write The result is shown

the filename,
remember to add
the .py extension