Python Introduction: Control Flow

for loops in Python always iterate over something list-like:

In [2]:
for i in range(10):
    print(i)
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Note that Python does block-structuring by leading spaces.

Also note the trailing ":".


if/else are as you would expect them to be:

In [3]:
for i in range(10):
    if i % 3 == 0:
        print("{0} is divisible by 3".format(i))
    else:
        print("{0} is not divisible by 3".format(i))
0 is divisible by 3
1 is not divisible by 3
2 is not divisible by 3
3 is divisible by 3
4 is not divisible by 3
5 is not divisible by 3
6 is divisible by 3
7 is not divisible by 3
8 is not divisible by 3
9 is divisible by 3

while loops exist too:

In [5]:
i = 0
while True:
    i += 1
    if i**3 + i**2 + i + 1 == 3616:
        break

print("SOLUTION:", i)
SOLUTION: 15

Building lists by hand can be a little long. For example, build a list of the squares of integers below 50 divisible by 7:

In [6]:
mylist = []
for i in range(50):
    if i % 7 == 0:
        mylist.append(i**2)
In [7]:
mylist
Out[7]:
[0, 49, 196, 441, 784, 1225, 1764, 2401]

Python has a something called list comprehension:

In [8]:
mylist = [i**2 for i in range(50) if i % 7 == 0]
In [9]:
mylist
Out[9]:
[0, 49, 196, 441, 784, 1225, 1764, 2401]