Python Data Types

Python Data Types

Data type of a variable tell us about the data contained by variable and allowed associated operations on it.

Python has following built-in data types: 

• Numbers (int, float, complex, Boolean), 
• None, 
• Sequences (String, List, and Tuples) and 
• Mapping (Dictionary)

a) int (Integer) – Integer represents whole numbers without any fractional part. There are two types of Integers in Python –

i.    Integer (signed) – Whole Number, with unlimited size, depends upon computer memory. Python has single data type (int) for any integer, whether big / long or small.

Example : x = 20

ii. Booleans – These represent truth values False and True. Boolean values are plain integers where False means 0 and True means 1. bool(0) return False, bool(1) returns True.

Example : x = True

b) float (floating point numbers) – Represent real number or floating point number, i.e. numbers with fractional part. A Floating point number in Python can have maximum 15 digits of precision (double precision).

Note: 25 is an integer while 25.0 is a floating point number.

Example:  p = 25.908787889

c)    Complex Numbers: Complex numbers in Python are made up of pairs of real and imaginary numbers. Python represents complex number in the form A + Bj, where A is the real part and B is the imaginary part. J or j is the imaginary number, equal to the square root of -1 i.e.    .

A and B both are internally represented as floating point number.

Python displays complex numbers in parentheses when they have a non-zero real part.

Complex numbers are a composite quantity made of two parts: the real partand imaginary part, both of which are represented internally as float values.

These two parts of complex number can be accessed through attributes – real & imag.

• complexNumber.real  – gives the real part as a float
• complexNumber.imag – gives the imaginary part as a float

d) String (str) : A string data type allows us to hold string data i.e. any number of valid characters into a set of quotation marks. In Python 3.x string store Unicode characters.

Example : 

‘125AnjeevSingh’ , “$%@#87Singh Academy”, “??*[],.<>”

In Python, String is a sequence of characters and each character can be individually accessed using its index position.

There are two types of indexing in Python – 

Forward Indexing       0   1    2     3    4     5

                                     A   N   J    E     E     V

Backward Indexing      -6   -5  -4   -3  -2    -1

e) List  – is a list of comma separated values of any data type between square brackets. It can be changed. E.g.

p = [1, 2, 3, 4] m = [‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’, ‘o’, ‘u’]

q = [“Anjeev”, “kumar”, “singh”]

r = [“Mohit”, 102, 85.2, True]

f) Tuple – is a list of comma separated values of any data type between parentheses. It cannot be changed. Eg.

p = (1, 2, 3, 4) m = (‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’, ‘o’, ‘u’)

q = (“Anjeev”, “kumar”, “singh”)

r = (“Mohit”, 102, 85.2, ‘M’, True)

g) Dictionary – is an unordered set of comma-separated key : value pairs within curly braces.

rec = {‘name’:“Mohit”, ‘roll’: 102, ‘marks’ : 85.2, ‘sex’: ‘M’, ‘ip’: True}

Python Mutable & Immutable Data Types

Python data types are categorised into two category – Mutable and Immutable.

Immutable Data Type

Integers, floating point number, Booleans, strings, and tuples are the immutable type. These data types never changes their value in place.

When you change the value of above-mentioned data type variable, it will change the reference pointed by variable.

In Python variable names are stored as references to a value-object. Each time we change the value, the variable’s reference memory address changes.

Mutable Data Type

In Python, only three types are Mutable. Mutable means value can be changed in place.

Lists, Dictionaries, and Sets