This article will teach you what an Enum is, and how they are used in the Python programming language. What is an Enum? An Enum (Enumerated Type) is a data structure containing multiple values. Each value is assigned to an identifier – and can be accessed by that identifier. Enums contain pre-defined constants that aren’t expected to change (they’ll be the same when the application is written and when it is run so that you can always refer to the data in the enum by the same identifier and get … Read more

This tutorial will show you how to use exponents (e.g., calculating the square root of a number) in Python, with some code examples. This tutorial covers several ways to calculate exponents in Python 3. Using ** (Power Operator) The ** mathematical operator (known as the power operator) will calculate an exponent, raising the number on the left to the power of the number on the right of the operator: 4**5 # Will evaluate 4*4*4*4*4 and return the integer value 1024 Note that: You will receive a ZeroDivisionError if you try to raise 0 (zero) … Read more

This article will show you how to use for loops in Python 3 and provide examples. Loops are one of the fundamentals of programming. So you’ll use them almost constantly. Data in computer software is often stored in arrays (or lists), for example, a record of students enrolled in a course, with each item in a list representing a student. These arrays of data need to be processed – and this is done using loops that step through each item in the array and perform some … Read more

This short tutorial will show you how to use lstrip and rstrip to remove whitespace (or any other characters) from the beginning/end of strings in Python. The lstrip and rstrip methods are available on any string type variable in Python 3. Python lstrip String Method The lstrip (Left strip) method will remove leading characters from the string – that is, characters starting from the left of the string. Syntax Here’s the syntax for the lstrip method: string.lstrip(characters) Note that: string can be any string value or variable with a string value characters is an optional parameter for the lstrip method These are the characters that … Read more

This tutorial will explain how to use the python zip() function to merge or aggregate several iterables (including lists and tuples). First up, the Python zip() function has NOTHING to do with compressing files. It’s got nothing to do with making a .zip file. It’s a totally different thing. So if that’s what you’re looking for, this isn’t it! What are Iterables? In the Python programming language, iterables are data types that can be iterated over item by item. It includes variables called lists, tuples, sets, and dictionaries … Read more

This article will outline several methods for generating random numbers and strings in the Python programming language. Generating random values is a common and important task when programming almost any kind of application of moderate complexity. Random strings and numbers are used to generate unique identifiers (e.g., for the short URLs in URL shortening services), for identifying unique records in a database, and (most importantly) are frequently used to determine the behavior of gameplay elements in video games (for example, simulating a coin flip, or … Read more

This article will show you how to calculate the square root, or any root, of numbers in the Python programming language. We previously covered squaring and raising numbers to a power in this article. What is a Root in Mathematics? The root of a number x is the number that must be multiplied by itself a given number of times to equal the number x. For example, the second root of 16 is 4 as 4*4 = 16. It is the second root because 4 must be multiplied by itself twice to reach the required result of 16. The third root of 64 is 4 as 4*4*4 = … Read more

This quick tip will show you the best way to check if a file or directory is writable in the Python programming language. Python: The Best Way To Check if a File or Directory is Writable Just try and write to it. That’s it. If you can write to the file, it must be writable Try and write to it, and handle any failure which occurs. try: with open(‘newfile.txt’, ‘w’) as file file.write(‘hello!’) file.close() except IOError as error: # You could also catch Exception instead of IOError to … Read more