EGR 103/Spring 2019/Skills Quiz

Draft v. 0.1 - 1/31/2019

ints and floats

• Operators (** * / % // + -) -- work as expected as long as you expect x**y to be x to the yth power!
• += and -= to add or subtract a value from a variable
• Relational operators (< <= == >= > !=)
• round(blah, [ndigits=0]) -- rounds to the 10**(-ndigits) place; round(123.456, -1) is 120.0 for instance.
• int(blah) returns the integer value of blah if blah is a string with a valid integer in it
• float(blah) returns the float value of blah if blah is a string with a valid float in it

arrays

• rectangular sequences of numbers (ints or floats)
• create using np.array(COLLECTION) where COLLECTION could be a list, list of lists, tuple, tuple of tuples, etc - must be rectangular
• + between arrays will add corresponding elements; + between an array and a number will add that number to each element
  • -, *, and / work in similar fashion
• np.TRIG() (where TRIG is cos, sin, etc) works on an array -- note that m.TRIG() will not
• no easy way to append an array
  • x = np.array([*x, NEW]) works - haven't used in class or lab
• slicing
• Must use np.max() np.min() and np.mean() to get max, min, and average
  • collection.copy() to create duplicate list somewhere else in memory

lists

• Sequence made up of any types of items, including other lists
• + will concatenate lists ([1, 2] + [3] yields [1, 2, 3])
  • Have to be lists -- [1, 2] + 3 yields an error!
• += will append an item to a list - that item must be a list!
• * will repeat lists -- [1, 2] * 3 yields [1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2]
• Useful commands (assume the variable collection is a list):
  • max(collection), min(collection) -- returns the appropriate value if all items are the same type (i.e. all numbers or all strings or all lists)
  • slicing
  • collection.copy() to create duplicate list somewhere else in memory

tuples

• Immutable - cannot change values
• Sequence made up of any types of items, including other tuples
• Single-element tuples created by putting , after item: x = (3,)
• + will concatenate tuples ((1, 2) + (3,) yields (1, 2, 3))
  • Have to be tuples -- (1, 2) + 3 or (1, 2) + (3) both yield an errors!
• += will append an item to a tuple and replace the old tuple with the new one - that item must be a tuple!
• * will repeat tuples -- (1, 2) * 3 yields (1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2)
• Useful commands (assume the variable collection is a tuple):
  • max(collection), min(collection) -- returns the appropriate value if all items are the same type (i.e. all numbers or all strings or all lists)
  • slicing
  • collection.copy() to create duplicate list somewhere else in memory

strings

• Immutable - cannot change characters
• + will concatenate strings ('Go' + ' ' + 'Duke' yields 'Go Duke')
• * will repeat strings ('Go' * 4 yields 'GoGoGoGo')
• ord(letter) can work on a single-character to return the ASCII value of that single letter; chr(number) will give the string related to the ASCII value of number. Since this only works on one character, need to map it to get all of them.
• Useful commands (assume the variable phrase is some string):
  • phrase = input("prompt: ") -- input always gets a string, use int() or float() to convert to something else if needed
  • phrase.lower(), phrase.upper(), phrase.capitalize() -- returns a string with words having appropriate cases

slicing

• work on arrays, strings, lists, and tuples
• thing[a:b:c] will slice the elements in thing starting with the ath item and going to just before the bth item, skipping c items at a time.
• For a thing with N elements,
  • Default for a is 0 if c is positive or N if c is negative
  • Default for b is N if c is positive or "up to and including the 0th entry" if c is negative
• If going backwards, you must include a negative c; thing[4:2] will return an empty version the same type as thing
• For lists of lists (or tuples of tuples) or arrays, can cascade indices (q[2][4]
• FOR ARRAYS ONLY can use x[row(s), col(s)]

logic

• Logical operators (not, and, or)
• "in" operator
  • check if integer is in a list or tuple
  • check if a letter or string is in a list of strings or in a string -- note different between "Ha" in "Happy" (which is True) and "Ha" in ["Happy"], which is false
  • Note: if you are checking if a list is in another list, the whole list has to be there! So, 1 in [1, 2, 3] is true, [1] in [1, 2, 3] is false, and [1] in [[1], 2, 3] is true.

math

• requires import math or import math as m
• Constants: m.pi and m.e
• Trig -- only works on a single value (m.sin(), m.cos(), m.asin(), etc); degrees are in radians
• Rounding -- m.ceil(), m.floor()
• Others:
  • m.log(x, [b==m.e]) returns base b logarithm of x
  • m.exp(x) returns m.e**x

numpy

• requires import numpy or import numpy as np
• np.linspace()
• np.random.randint(), np.random.uniform(), np.random.normal(), np.random.seed()
• np.polyfit(x, y, ord) and np.polyval(coefs, new_x)
• np.loadtxt('filename')
• np.min(), np.mean(), np.max()

printing

• Be able to use print using replacement fields and the format command
• Given a replacement field of the form "{" [field_name] ["!" conversion] [":" format_spec] "}", be able to use:
  • field name: if blank, take next field on stack; if a number, take that entry in the stack
  • conversion - N/A
  • format spec - given the general format spec of [[fill]align][sign][#][0][width][,][.precision][type], be able to use:
    • sign: if this is +, put - and + in front of numbers; otherwise, ignore +
    • width: reserve at least this much space to print the number; if the number needs more space, it will take it. If it needs left, default alignment is to the right for a number and to the left for a string
    • precision: number of digits after the decimal point
    • type: s for strings, f for regular floating point, e for scientific notation
• default is for print to append '\n' to go to next line; use print(thing, end="") to stop that from happening

plotting

• requires import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
• Start with

fig,ax = plt.subplots(num=1, clear=True)

• fig.clf()
• ax.plot(y)
• ax.plot(x, y)
• ax.plot(x, y, format)
• ax.set_xlabel(), ax.set_ylabel(), ax.set_title(), ax.grid()
• fig.savefig(NAME)
• Need to know for the format:
  • colors: b g r c m y k w
  • line styles: - -- -. :
  • marker styles: . o s + D
  • Can only put one color in format

functions

• definition and default cases
• required inputs,
• returns (returns a tuple - can either grab all or each individually)

program flow

• if trees
  • May include multiple elif branches
  • May include else branch at the end
• for loops
  • for k in LIST: iterates over each item in the list
  • for k in TUPLE: iterates over each item in the tuple
  • for k in STRING: iterates over each character in the string
  • for k in range(stop): iterates over integers from 0 to stop-1
  • for k in range(start, stop): iterates over integers from start to stop-1
  • for k in range(start, stop, step): iterates over integers from start by step to the value before hitting or going over stop
• nested versions of all of the above

unix

Be able to define the following commands, show common use cases

• pwd
• ls
  • also ls -a
• cd
• mkdir
• wget
  • Given a web address for a file, know how to get the file
• tar
  • specifically tar -kxvf FILE.tar
• cp
  • also cp -ir
• emacs
• latex
• dvipdf
• evince
• & after a command

Not on test

• Dictionaries
• LaTeX
• binary
• try...except
• open, write, close