PYTHON PROGRAMMING

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 UNIT II -FUNCTIONS
• Functions are self-contained programs that perform some particular task.

• Once the function is created, this function can be called anytime to perform
that task.

• Each function is given a name. A function may or may not return a value.

• Built in functions dir(), len(), abs() etc., provided in python.

• Users can build their own functions-called user-defined functions.

Advantages of using functions

• Reduce duplication of code in a program
• Break the large complex problems into small parts
• Help in improving the clarity of code
• Piece of code may be reused any number of times.

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 Built-in Functions
Functions already defined in the python programming

1.Type conversion:- Explicit Conversion

Convert one type of data into another type
Ex:
Int(5.5)
5
Int(‘python’) #string value cannot be int
Value error
Int(5)
5
Float(44)
44.0
Str(67)
‘67’
Print(‘python’+2.7) #cannot concatenate string and float
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 2.Type coercion-implicit conversion

It is automatically done by the interpreter.

Ex:using type conversion
Minute=59
Float(minute)/60
0.98333
Ex:using type coercion
Minute=59
Minute/60.0
0.98333 #operand is float, the other is automatically converted to
float
3. Mathematical function
Python provides math module.
Module is a file that contains some predefined python codes
Module can define function classes and variables.
it is a collection of related functions grouped together.
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>>>import math
To Access the function write the name of the module followed by dot(.)
period
Ex:
Height=math.sin(90)
Degree=45
Angle=degree*2*math.pi/360.0
4. Date and time
• python have built in modules, time and calendar to work with date and
time.
• Import time and calendar module.
Ex: getting current date and time
Import time; # Returns nine tuples, seconds,
lt=time.localtime(time.time()) hour, minute, year, month, day….
Print “local current time”,lt

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 Ex.getting formatted date and time
Import time;
lt=time.asctime(time.localtime(time.time()))
Print “local time is”,lt
Output:
Local time is wed nov 4 19:28:05 2020
Ex: getting calendar for a month
Python provides yearly or monthly calender
Import calendar
c=calendar.month(2020,11)
Print “calendar for november\n”,c)
Output:
Display the november month calendar.

4. dir() function
• dir() takes an object as an argument
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• It returns a list of strings which are names of members of that object
Ex:
import math
list=dir(math)
Print list
Output
*‘cos’, ’sin’, ’tan’, ’log’, ’pi’, ’pow’……+

6. help() function
• It is a built in function which is used to invoke the help system.
• It gives all the detailed information about the module.
Ex:
import math
help(math.sin) #gives the detailed information about the sin function
help(math.cos)

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 Composition of functions
Syntax:
f(g(x))=f.g(x)
• f and g are functions
• Return value of function ‘g’ is passed into the function ‘f’ as
parameters/arguments.
Ex:
x=math.sin(angle+math.pi/4)
x=math.exp(math.log(10.0))

User Defined Functions

• Python allows users to define their own functions
• Users have to define the function first known as function definition
• In function definition, users have to define a name for the new function
and also the list of the statements that will execute when the function will
be called.
• A function is a self contained block of one or more statements that
performs a special task when called.
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 Syntax for function
def nameoffunction(parameters) #function header
statement1
statement2
….. Function body
statement n
• The function header may contain zero or more number of parameters.
These parameters are called formal parameters.

Ex:
def display()
print(“welcome to python coding”)
display() #call function
Output
Welcome to python coding.

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Ex:
def print_msg():
str1=input(“please enter your name”)
print(“dear”,str1,”welcome”)
print_msg() #call function
Output
dear sai welcome
Ex:
def sum(x,y):
s=0;
for i in range(x,y+1):
s=s+i
print(“sum of integers from “, x, ”to” y “is”, s)
sum(1,25)
sum(50,75)
sum(90,100)
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 PARAMETERS AND ARGUMENTS

Are the values passed to the functions between parenthesis

Ex:
>>>def print_line(line):
print line
print line
>>> print_line(‘Hello’)
Hello
Hello
>>>print_line(17)
17
17
>>>print_line(math.pi)
3.141
3.141

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There are 4 types of formal arguments using which a function can be called:
• Required arguments/positional arguments

• Keyword arguments

• Default arguments

• Variable length arguments

Required arguments
When we assign the parameters to a function at the time of function
definition, at the time of calling, the arguments should be passed to a
function in correct positional order.

The number of arguments should match the defined number of

parameters.
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Ex:
def display(name,age)
print(“name=“,name, “age”,=age)
display(“radha”) #print error message, the argument for age is missing

Ex:
def display(name,age)
Print(“name=“,name,”age=“,age)
display(“radha”,21)
Display(21,”ramya”) #it passes 21 to name and ramya to age

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Keyword arguments
• In keyword arguments the calling recognises the argument by the
parameters names
• The programmer can pass a keyword argument to a function by using its
corresponding parameter name rather than its position.
Ex:
>>> def print_info(name,age):
print “name:”,name
print “age:”, age
return Keyword argument example
>>>print_info(age=15, name=‘radha’);
Output:
name:radha
Age:21

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 Precautions for using keyword arguments
1. A positional argument cannot follow keyword arguments
Ex:
def display(num1,num2):
display(40,num2=10)
display(num2=10,40) #wrong invoking
Because the positional arguments 40 appears after the keyword argument
num2=10.

2. The programmer cannot duplicate an argument by specifying its as both,a

positional argument and a keyword argument.
Ex: consider a functional definition
def display(num1,num2)

The programmer cannot invoke the display() function as

display(40,num1=40)#error

i.e multiple values for the parameter num1

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3. Default arguments
We can assign a value to a parameter at the time of function definition. This
value is considered as default value to that parameter.
Ex:
>>>def info(name,age=35):
print “name:”,name
print “age:”,age
return
>>>info(age=20,name=‘radha’);
output
name: radha
age:20
>>>info(name=‘radha’);
output
name:radha
age:35

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4. variable-length arguments
In many cases where we are required to process a function with more
number of arguments than we specified in the function definition. These
types of arguments are known as variable length arguments.

For these arguments we use (*) before the name of the variable, which holds
the value of all non-keyword variable arguments.

>>>def info(arg1,*vartuple):
print “result is”,arg1
for var in vartuple:
print var
return
>>>info(10); >>>info(90,60,40);
Output output
Result is 10 result is 90

60
40

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 Function calls

>>> def m(a,b):

mul=a*b
return mul
>>>a=4
>>>b=3
>>>m1=m(a,b)
>>>print(m1)
Output: 12
Ex:
Fact(num)
def fact(n1): Output
Fact1=1 Enter the number 5
Entered number is 5
Print(“entered number is “,n1)
Factorial of number 5 is 120
For i in range(1,n1+1)
fact1=fact1*i
print(“factorial of number”,n1 “is”,fact1)
Num=int(input(“enter the number”))
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• The function is called using the name with which it was defined earlier,
followed by a pair of parenthesis(()). Any input parameters or arguments
are to be placed within these calling parenthesis.
• All parameters/arguments which are passed in functions are always
passed by reference in python.

The return statement

• The return statement is used to exit a function
• A function may or may not return a value
• If a function returns a value it is passed back by the return statement as
argument to the caller
If it does not return a value, we simply write return with no
arguments.
Syntax
return(expression)

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Ex:
>>>def div(arg1,arg2):
division=arg1/arg2
return division
>>>arg3=div(20,10)
>>>print arg3
Output
2
Python Recursive Function
• Recursion is generally understood to be the process of repeating
something in a self similar way.
• Function can call another function, it is also possible that a function call
itself.

Ex:Factorial of a number
4!=4*3*2*1=24
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>>>def fact(x):
if x==1:
return 1
else:
return(x*fact(x-1))
>>>fact(4)
Output 24
Fibonacci numbers 1,1,2,3,5,8…….
Def fib(n):
if n==0:
return 1
if n==1:
return 1
return fib(n-1)+fib(n-1)
Print(“the value of fibonacci numbers”, fib(8))

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 The anonymous functions
• Functions created by lambda keyword.
• They are not defined by using def keyword. For this reason they are called
anonymous functions
• We can pass any number of arguments to a lamda form functions, but still
they return only one value in the form of expression.
• It is a single line statement function
Syntax
lamda *arg1,arg2….argn]:expression
Ex:
>>>mult=lamda val1,val2:val1*val2;
>>>print “value”, mult(20,40)
Output
Value 800
The lamda function is defined with 2 arguments val1 and val2. The val1*val2
does the multiplication of 2 values. We can call the mult function with two
valid values as arguments.
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 Writing python scripts

A scripting language is a programming language that uses an interpreter to

translate its source code. A python script will be full of functions that can be
imported as a library of functions in other scripts, or a python script can be a
command.
Two ways of executing python program:
1. Through the python terminal called interactive mode
2. Through scripting

Method 2-called scripting

• We write a python program in notepad and then save the program with
.py extension.
• When we have to run the program we type the name of the program in
command prompt as:
python filename.py
before executing the script the path variable must be correctly set.

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To execute the file
1. Open cmd
2. Change directory to python folder
a. c:\>cd
b. C:\python2.7\
3. Run python script first.py
c:\python2.7\>pythonpath>python first.py

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