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Operators

With every programming language we have our operators, and Python is no different. Operators in a programming language are used to vaguely describe 5 different areas: arithmetic, assignment, increment/decrement, comparison, logical. There isn’t really much need to explain all of them as I have previously in the other categories, which means we will only cover a few of them.

Arithmetic Operators

Example
print (3 + 4)
print (3 - 4)
print (3 * 4)
print (3 / 4)
print (3 % 2)
print (3 ** 4) # 3 to the fourth power
print (3 // 4) #floor division
Result 7
-1
12
0.75
1
81
0

See, they are pretty standard. I included how to do exponents because it’s a little funky, but other than that, they are fairly normal and work as expected. Don’t forget that you can use the + sign to concatenate strings. The addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division work just like expected. You might have not seen the modulus operator before (%). All the modulus operator does is to divide the left side by the right side and get the remainder. So, that remainder is what is returned and not the number of times the right number went into the left number The double * is just an easy way to provide exponents to Python. Finally, the floor division operator (//) just divides the number and rounds down.

Assignment Operators

These are pretty identical to the previous languages also, but a refresher never hurt anyone. Example please!

Example
a = 0
a+=2
print (a)
Result 2

Of course, you can do this with any of the previous arithmetic operators as an assignment operator followed by the = We just told Python to add 2 to the value of a without having to say something like a = a + 2. We are programmers, and we are proud to be called lazy!



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  • Stewart, Suzy. "Operators". After Hours Programming. Accessed on September 19, 2024. https://www.afterhoursprogramming.com/tutorial/python/operators-py/.

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49 thoughts on “Operators”

  1. print (3 / 4) gives 0 on my local setup since it is Python 2.7. But why is the code simulator also giving 0? code simulator should be using Python 3, isn’t it ? Thanks

  2. @Wertb

    If you look at the example the result of 3 / 4 = 0.75, this is the result of a normal division.
    The result of 3 // 4 = 0 since this is a so called floor division which rounds down the answer.

    If you are trying the code on your own system and get 0 as a result when you are executing 3 / 4 it means that you are using Python 2 instead of Python 3. You can get the correct result in Python 2 by using 3.0 / 4.0.

  3. Could someone provide an example of when the assignment operator would come in handy? Why wouldn’t I just change my code to be what I need it to be? so instead of

    a = 1
    a+ = 2
    print (a)

    3

    Why wouldn’t I just do a = 3?

    Thanks!

  4. I have studied Python for like… a hundred times! And i also created like… 3 Games and 10 Programs! (Im not Bragging) But still im gonna study it over and over again to improve my skill so keep up the good work programmers!

  5. A reply to Milos comment;
    The "a+=2" expression increases the value of the original "a" by the numerical value.
    If you set "a" at a value of "2", and then later need the value of "a" to be larger or smaller you would use the "a±=2" (respective of what you need, add or subtract), to increase or decrease the earlier set value of "a".

  6. the line ‘ We are programmers, and we are proud to be called lazy!’ is something I never heard……all I have heard is ‘we are programmers , and people see us as alien’

  7. Might be better if your modulo, floor division, and division examples all used the same divisor and dividend to clarify the difference between division, floor division, and modulo (6/4=1r2, 6%4=2, and 6//4=1)

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