4. Concepts about variables and assignment

• Variables are used to store values ​​and name an area of ​​the computer’s memory

• The symbol for assignment is the equals sign (=)

1 a = 2 2 b = 3 3 print(a + b) Edit this code line that just executed next line to execute << First < Prev Next > Last >> Step 1 of 3 Submit Python Tutor by Philip Guo Customize visualization (NEW!)

Print output (drag lower right corner to resize) Frames Global frame Objects

Activity: CodeLens 4.1 (cl_l05_4a_en)

• Like in mathematics, we pass parameters or values ​​to a function using parentheses

• A function f(x), where f is the name of the function and x is a parameter

• In the previous example, print is the name of the function and a + b is the value passed as a parameter

• We can also use the interactive mode Try it here!

• The first two lines do not print anything to the screen, so only the result of the third line is shown

4.1. Other alternatives

• You may wonder why we create two variables, a and b, to add two numbers?

• We could have achieved the same result in several ways.

1 print(2 + 3) 2 print(5) Edit this code line that just executed next line to execute << First < Prev Next > Last >> Step 1 of 2 Submit Python Tutor by Philip Guo Customize visualization (NEW!)

Print output (drag lower right corner to resize) Frames Global frame Objects

Activity: CodeLens 4.1.1 (cl_l05_4b_en)

• What is the difference between the first way and the last two?

• The first case includes the logic we used to obtain the result

• This way, we explicitly state the algorithm we used mentally to solve this problem

• In the last two cases, we simply command the computer to print something specific, without making clear the logic to arrive at that result.

You have attempted 1 of 2 activities on this page