Introduction to Data Type

This section provides a quick introduction of Python basic data types including NoneType, bool, int, float, bytes, str, tuple, list, dict, etc.

What Is Data Type? A data type is defined as a class of data objects who shares the same data structure, properties and operations.

There are two very important statements about Python you should remember:

You can use the type(object) function to see the class name that defines the given data object:

>>> type(314)
<class 'int'>

>>> type(3.14)
<class 'float'>

>>> type('3.14')
<class 'str'>

>>> type(True)
<class 'bool'>

>>> type(None)
<class 'NoneType'>

>>> type(())
<class 'tuple'>

>>> type([])
<class 'list'>

>>> type({})
<class 'dict'>

>>> type(type)
<class 'type'>

>>> type(exit)
<class '_sitebuiltins.Quitter'>

Python data types can be grouped into hierarchical trees as shown below (devopedia.org):

Python Data Type Hierarchy
Python Data Type Hierarchy

In this chapter, we will cover the following basic data types:

For more information, see Python reference document "Built-in Types" at https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html.

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 Running Python Code Online

 Python on macOS Computers

 Python on Linux Computers

Built-in Data Types

Introduction to Data Type

 Common Features of All Data Types

 Data Type - NoneType for Nothing

 Data Type - 'bool' for Boolean Values

 Data Type - 'int' for Integer Values

 Data Type - 'float' for Real Numbers

 Data Type - 'bytes' for Byte Sequence

 Data Type - 'str' for Character String

 Data Type - 'tuple' for Immutable List

 Data Type - 'list' for Mutable List

 Data Type - 'dict' for Dictionary Table

 Variables, Operations and Expressions

 Statements - Execution Units

 Function Statement and Function Call

 Iterators, Generators and List Comprehensions

 Classes and Instances

 Modules and Module Files

 Packages and Package Directories

 "sys" and "os" Modules

 "pathlib" - Object-Oriented Filesystem Paths

 "pip" - Package Installer for Python

 SciPy.org - Python Libraries for Science

 pandas - Data Analysis and Manipulation

 Anaconda - Python Environment Manager

 Jupyter Notebook and JupyterLab

 References

 Full Version in PDF/EPUB