1 ... Introduction ... 33

1.1 ... Why Did We Write This Book? ... 33

1.2 ... What Does This Book Provide? ... 34

1.3 ... Structure of the Book ... 34

1.4 ... How Should You Read This Book? ... 35

1.5 ... Sample Programs ... 36

1.6 ... Preface To the First English Edition (2022) ... 36

1.7 ... Acknowledgments ... 37

2 ... The Python Programming Language ... 39

2.1 ... History, Concepts, and Areas of Application ... 39

2.2 ... Installing Python ... 42

2.3 ... Installing Third-Party Modules ... 45

2.4 ... Using Python ... 45

PART I ... Getting Started with Python ... 47

3 ... Getting Started with the Interactive Mode ... 49

3.1 ... Integers ... 49

3.2 ... Floats ... 51

3.3 ... Character Strings ... 51

3.4 ... Lists ... 52

3.5 ... Dictionaries ... 53

3.6 ... Variables ... 54

3.7 ... Logical Expressions ... 55

3.8 ... Functions and Methods ... 57

3.9 ... Screen Outputs ... 59

3.10 ... Modules ... 60

4 ... The Path to the First Program ... 63

4.1 ... Typing, Compiling, and Testing ... 63

4.2 ... Basic Structure of a Python Program ... 66

4.3 ... The First Program ... 70

4.4 ... Comments ... 72

4.5 ... In Case of Error ... 72

5 ... Control Structures ... 75

5.1 ... Conditionals ... 75

5.2 ... Loops ... 79

5.3 ... The pass Statement ... 87

5.4 ... Assignment Expressions ... 87

6 ... Files ... 91

6.1 ... Data Streams ... 91

6.2 ... Reading Data from a File ... 92

6.3 ... Writing Data to a File ... 96

6.4 ... Generating the File Object ... 97

7 ... The Data Model ... 103

7.1 ... The Structure of Instances ... 105

7.2 ... Deleting References ... 109

7.3 ... Mutable versus Immutable Data Types ... 111

8 ... Functions, Methods, and Attributes ... 115

8.1 ... Parameters of Functions and Methods ... 115

8.2 ... Attributes ... 118

9 ... Sources of Information on Python ... 119

9.1 ... The Built-In Help Function ... 119

9.2 ... The Online Documentation ... 120

9.3 ... PEPs ... 120

PART II ... Data Types ... 123

10 ... Basic Data Types: An Overview ... 125

10.1 ... Nothingness: NoneType ... 126

10.2 ... Operators ... 127

11 ... Numeric Data Types ... 131

11.1 ... Arithmetic Operators ... 131

11.2 ... Comparison Operators ... 133

11.3 ... Conversion between Numeric Data Types ... 134

11.4 ... Integers: int ... 135

11.5 ... Floats: float ... 141

11.6 ... Boolean Values: bool ... 144

11.7 ... Complex Numbers: complex ... 149

12 ... Sequential Data Types ... 153

12.1 ... The Difference between Text and Binary Data ... 153

12.2 ... Operations on Inst