School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Washington State University

Algorithmic Problem Solving with Python

I once considered publishing a book that uses Python to introduce folks to programming and algorithmic thinking.  But, why go through the hassle of publishing through a publisher when you can give away something for free?  (Okay, I can think of several reasons, but, as with my book on the Finite-Difference Time-Domain method, I’m going to ignore them!)

I teamed up with Shira Broschat and Jessamyn Dahmen and here is what we have written so far.  I consider this to be something of a work in progress, but many of the sections are rather well polished (as I hope you’ll agree).  Here are a few things to note:

• This material is presented “as is.”  One of the reasons I’m not trying to publish this via the traditional route is that I/we lack the time to put all the finishing touches on this material (such as adding full problem sets at the end of each chapter).
• Despite the previous statement, we sincerely welcome any and all suggestions to improve this material.  If you catch a typo or think there is some weakness in this material, please let me know (by sending John Schneider email at
  schneidj@eecs.wsu.edu
  ).
• If you find this material useful and see an opportunity to cite it, we would be ever so appreciative of the citation.  Please cite this work as: Algorithmic Problem Solving with Python, John B. Schneider, Shira Lynn Broschat, and Jess Dahmen, www.eecs.wsu.edu/~schneidj/swan, 2013.
• You may download either the entire book (via the link immediately below) or download the individual chapters.  However, this book is completely hyper-linked and many of these hyperlinks break when you split the book into individual chapters.  Thus, unless you can think of a compelling reason to do otherwise, we encourage you to download the entire book.
• Algorithmic Problem Solving with Python by John B. Schneider, Shira Lynn Broschat, and Jess Dahmen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  
  

• Chapter 1:  Introduction
  
  • 1.1 Modern Computers
  • 1.2 Computer Languages
  • 1.3 Python
  • 1.4 Algorithmic Problem Solving
  • 1.5 Obtaining Python
  • 1.6 Running Python
    • 1.6.1 Interactive Sessions and Comments
    • 1.6.2 Running Commands from a File
  • 1.7 Bugs
  • 1.8 The help() Function
  • 1.9 Comments on Learning New Languages
  • 1.10 Chapter Summary
  • 1.11 Review Questions
• Chapter 2:  Core Basics
  
  • 2.1 Literals and Types
  • 2.2 Expressions, Arithmetic Operators, and Precedence
  • 2.3 Statements and the Assignment Operator
  • 2.4 Cascaded and Simultaneous Assignment
  • 2.5 Multi-Line Statements and Multi-Line Strings
  • 2.6 Identifiers and Keywords
  • 2.7 Names and Namespaces
  • 2.8 Additional Arithmetic Operators
    • 2.8.1 Exponentiation
    • 2.8.2 Floor Division
    • 2.8.3 Modulo and divmod()
    • 2.8.4 Augmented Assignment
  • 2.9 Chapter Summary
  • 2.10 Review Questions
  • 2.11 Exercises
• Chapter 3:  Input and Type Conversion
  
  • 3.1 Obtaining Input: input()
  • 3.2 Explicit Type Conversion: int(), float(), and str()
  • 3.3 Evaluating Strings: eval()
  • 3.4 Chapter Summary
  • 3.5 Review Questions
  • 3.6 Exercises
• Chapter 4:  Functions
  
  • 4.1 Void Functions and None
  • 4.2 Creating Void Functions
  • 4.3 Non-Void Functions
  • 4.4 Scope of Variables
  • 4.5 Scope of Functions
  • 4.6 print() vs. return
  • 4.7 Using a main() Function
  • 4.8 Optional Parameters
  • 4.9 Chapter Summary
  • 4.10 Review Questions
  • 4.11 Exercises
• Chapter 5:  Introduction to Objects
  
  • 5.1 Overview of Objects and Classes
  • 5.2 Creating a Class: Attributes
  • 5.3 Creating a Class: Methods
  • 5.4 The dir() Function
  • 5.5 The __init__() Method
  • 5.6 Operator Overloading
  • 5.7 Take-Away Message
  • 5.8 Chapter Summary
• Chapter 6:  Lists and for-Loops
  
  • 6.1 lists
  • 6.2 list Methods
  • 6.3 for-Loops
  • 6.4 Indexing
  • 6.5 range()
  • 6.6 Mutability, Immutability, and Tuples
  • 6.7 Nesting Loops in Functions
  • 6.8 Simultaneous Assignment with Lists
  • 6.9 Examples
    • 6.9.1 Storing Entries in a list
    • 6.9.2 Accumulators
    • 6.9.3 Fibonacci Sequence
  • 6.10 Chapter Summary
  • 6.11 Review Questions
• Chapter 7:  More on for-Loops, Lists, and Iterables
  
  • 7.1 for-Loops within for-Loops
  • 7.2 lists of lists
    • 7.2.1 Indexing Embedded lists
    • 7.2.2 Simultaneous Assignment and lists of lists
  • 7.3 References and list Mutability
  • 7.4 Strings as Iterables or Sequences
  • 7.5 Negative Indices
  • 7.6 Slicing
  • 7.7 list Comprehension (optional)
  • 7.8 Chapter Summary
  • 7.9 Review Questions
• Chapter 8:  Modules and import Statements
  
  • 8.1 Importing Entire Modules
  • 8.2 Introduction to Complex Numbers
  • 8.3 Complex Numbers and the cmath
  • 8.4 Importing Selected Parts of a Module
  • 8.5 Importing an Entire Module Using *
  • 8.6 Importing Your Own Module
  • 8.7 Chapter Summary
  • 8.8 Review Questions
• Chapter 9:  Strings
  
  • 9.1 String Basics
  • 9.2 The ASCII Characters
  • 9.3 Escape Sequences
  • 9.4 chr() and ord()
  • 9.5 Assorted String Methods
    • 9.5.1 lower(), upper(), capitalize(), title(), and swapcase()
    • 9.5.2 count()
    • 9.5.3 strip(), lstrip(), and rstrip()
    • 9.5.4 __repr__()
    • 9.5.5 find() and index()
    • 9.5.6 replace()
  • 9.6 split() and join()
  • 9.7 Format Strings and the format()
    • 9.7.1 Replacement Fields as Placeholders
    • 9.7.2 Format Specifier: Width
    • 9.7.3 Format Specifier: Alignment
    • 9.7.4 Format Specifier: Fill and Zero Padding
    • 9.7.5 Format Specifier: Precision (Maximum Width)
    • 9.7.6 Format Specifier: Type
    • 9.7.7 Format Specifier: Summary
    • 9.7.8 A Formatting Example
  • 9.8 Chapter Summary
  • 9.9 Review Questions
• Chapter 10:  Reading and Writing Files
  
  • 10.1 Reading a File
    • 10.1.1 read(), close(), and tell()
    • 10.1.2 readline()
    • 10.1.3 readlines()
    • 10.1.4 File Object Used as an Iterable
    • 10.1.5 Using More than One Read Method
  • 10.2 Writing to a File
    • 10.2.1 write() and print()
    • 10.2.2 writelines()
  • 10.3 Chapter Summary
  • 10.4 Review Questions
• Chapter 11:  Conditional Statements
  
  • 11.1 if Statements, Boolean Variables, and bool()
  • 11.2 Comparison Operators
  • 11.3 Compound Conditional Statements
    • 11.3.1 if-else Statements
    • 11.3.2 if-elif-else Statements
  • 11.4 Logical Operators
  • 11.5 Multiple Comparisons
  • 11.6 while-Loops
    • 11.6.1 Infinite Loops and break
    • 11.6.2 continue
  • 11.7 Short-Circuit Behavior
  • 11.8 The in Operator
  • 11.9 Chapter Summary
  • 11.10 Review Questions
• Chapter 12:  Recursion
  
  • 12.1 Background
  • 12.2 Flawed Recursion
  • 12.3 Proper Recursion
  • 12.4 Merge Sort
• Chapter 13:  Turtle Graphics
  
  • 13.1 Introduction
  • 13.2 Turtle Basics
    • 13.2.1 Importing Turtle Graphics
    • 13.2.2 Your First Drawing
  • 13.3 Basic Shapes and Using Iteration to Generate Graphics
    • 13.3.1 Controlling the Turtle's Animation Speed
  • 13.4 Colors and Filled Shapes
    • 13.4.1 Strange Errors
    • 13.4.2 Filled Shapes
  • 13.5 Visualizing Recursion
  • 13.6 Simple GUI Walk-Through
    • 13.6.1 Function References
    • 13.6.2 Callback functions
    • 13.6.3 A simple GUI
• Chapter 14:  Dictionaries
  
  • 14.1 Dictionary Basics
  • 14.2 Cycling through a Dictionary
  • 14.3 get()
  • 14.4 Chapter Summary
  • 14.5 Review Questions
• Appendix A:  ASCII Non-printable Characters