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second Edition
Fundamentals of Python:
Data STRUCTURES
Kenneth A. Lambert
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Fundamentals of Python: © 2019, 2014 Cengage Learning, Inc.
Data Structures, Second Edition
Unless otherwise noted, all content is © Cengage.
Kenneth A. Lambert
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this work covered by the
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Table of Contents
iii
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contents
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contents
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contents
Glo s s ar y �����������������������������������������������������401
Welcome to Fundamentals of Python: Data Structures, 2nd Edition. This text is intended
for a second semester course in programming and problem solving with data structures. It
covers the material taught in a typical Computer Science 2 course (CS2) at the undergradu-
ate level. Although this book uses the Python programming language, you need only have a
basic knowledge of programming in a high-level programming language before beginning
Chapter 1.
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P r e fa c e Why Python?
Why Python?
Computer technology and applications have become increasingly more sophisticated over
the past three decades, and so has the computer science curriculum, especially at the intro-
ductory level. Today’s students learn a bit of programming and problem solving and are
then expected to move quickly into topics like software development, complexity analysis,
xii
and data structures that, 30 years ago, were relegated to advanced courses. In addition,
the ascent of object-oriented programming as the dominant paradigm has led instructors
and textbook authors to bring powerful, industrial-strength programming languages such
as C++ and Java into the introductory curriculum. As a result, instead of experiencing the
rewards and excitement of solving problems with computers, beginning computer science
students often become overwhelmed by the combined tasks of mastering advanced con-
cepts as well as the syntax of a programming language.
This book uses the Python programming language as a way of making the second course
in computer science more manageable and attractive for students and instructors alike.
Python has the following pedagogical benefits:
•• Python has simple, conventional syntax. Python statements are very close to those of
pseudocode algorithms, and Python expressions use the conventional notation found
in algebra. Thus, you can spend less time dealing with the syntax of a programming
language and more time learning to solve interesting problems.
•• Python has safe semantics. Any expression or statement whose meaning violates the
definition of the language produces an error message.
•• Python scales well. It is easy for beginners to write simple programs in Python. Python
also includes all the advanced features of a modern programming language, such as
support for data structures and object-oriented software development, for use when
they become necessary, especially in the second course in computer science
•• Python is highly interactive. You can enter expressions and statements at an interpreter’s
prompts to try out experimental code and receive immediate feedback. You can also
compose longer code segments and save them in script files to be loaded and run as
modules or stand-alone applications.
•• Python is general purpose. In today’s context, this means that the language includes
resources for contemporary applications, including media computing and web
services.
•• Python is free and is in widespread use in the industry. You can download Python to run
on a variety of devices. There is a large Python user community, and expertise in Python
programming has great resume value.
To summarize these benefits, Python is a comfortable and flexible vehicle for expressing
ideas about computation, both for beginners and for experts. If you learn these ideas well
in the first year, you should have no problems making a quick transition to other lan-
guages needed for courses later in the curriculum. Most importantly, you will spend less
time staring at a computer screen and more time thinking about interesting problems
to solve.
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Organization of this Book P r e fa c e
collection is illustrated with one or more applications, and then several implementations
are developed, and their performance trade-offs are analyzed.
Chapters 10 through 12 present advanced data structures and algorithms as a transition to
later courses in computer science. Chapter 10 discusses various tree structures, including
binary search trees, heaps, and expression trees. Chapter 11 examines the implementation
xiv of the unordered collections, bags, sets, and dictionaries, using hashing strategies.
Chapter 12 introduces graphs and graph-processing algorithms.
As mentioned earlier, this book is unique in presenting a professional-quality framework of
collection types. Instead of encountering a series of apparently unrelated collections, you
will explore the place of each collection in an integrated whole. This approach allows you
to see what the collection types have in common as well as what makes each one unique.
At the same time, you will be exposed to a realistic use of inheritance and class hierarchies,
topics in object-oriented software design that are difficult to motivate and exemplify at this
level of the curriculum.
Special Features
This book explains and develops concepts carefully, using frequent examples and diagrams.
New concepts are then applied in complete programs to show how they aid in solving prob-
lems. The chapters place an early and consistent emphasis on good writing habits and neat,
readable documentation.
The book includes several other important features:
•• Case studies—These present complete Python programs ranging from the simple to the
substantial. To emphasize the importance and usefulness of the software development life
cycle, case studies are discussed in the framework of a user request, followed by analysis,
design, implementation, and suggestions for testing, with well-defined tasks performed at
each stage. Some case studies are extended in end-of-chapter programming projects.
•• Chapter summaries—Each chapter after the first one ends with a summary of the
major concepts covered in the chapter.
•• Key terms—When a new term is introduced in the text, it appears in bold face.
Definitions of the key terms are also collected in a glossary.
•• Exercises—Most major sections of each chapter after the first one end with exercise
questions that reinforce the reading by asking basic questions about the material in the
section. After Chapter 2, each chapter ends with review questions.
•• Programming projects—Each chapter ends with a set of programming projects of
varying difficulty.
objectives have been added to the beginning of each chapter. Several new figures have been
added to illustrate concepts, and many programming projects have been added or reworked.
A new section on iterators and higher-order functions has been added to Chapter 2. Finally,
a new section on Lisp-like lists, recursive list processing, and functional programming has
been added to Chapter 9.
xv
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the students see and when they see it. Learn more at http://www.cengage.com/mindtap/.
xvi
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my friend, Martin Osborne, for many years of advice, friendly
criticism, and encouragement on several of my book projects.
I would also like to thank my students in Computer Science 112 at Washington and Lee
University for classroom testing this book over several semesters.
Finally, I would like to thank Kristin McNary, Product Team Manager; Chris Shortt, Product
Manager; Maria Garguilo and Kate Mason, Learning Designers; Magesh Rajagopalan, Senior
Project Manager; Danielle Shaw, Tech Editor; and especially Michelle Ruelos Cannistraci,
Senior Content Manager, for handling all the details of producing this edition of the book.
Dedication
To Brenda Wilson, with love and admiration.
Kenneth A.Lambert
Lexington, VA
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Chapter 1
Basic Python
Programming
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Chapter 1 Basic Python Programming
This chapter gives a quick overview of Python programming. It is intended to bring those
new to or rusty in Python up to speed, but it does not pretend to be a thorough introduc-
tion to computer science or the Python programming language. For a more detailed treat-
ment of programming in Python, see my book Fundamentals of Python: First Programs,
Second Edition (Cengage Learning, 2019). For documentation on the Python programming
2
language, visit www.python.org.
If your computer already has Python, check the version number by running the python
or python3 command at a terminal prompt. (Linux and Mac users first open a terminal
window, and Windows users first open a DOS window.) You are best off using the most
current version of Python available. Check for that at www.python.org, and download and
install the latest version if necessary. You will need Python 3.0 or higher to run the pro-
grams presented in this book.
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Basic Program Elements
import random
def main():
"""Inputs the bounds of the range of numbers
and lets the user guess the computer’s number until
the guess is correct."""
smaller = int(input("Enter the smaller number: ")) 3
larger = int(input("Enter the larger number: "))
myNumber = random.randint(smaller, larger)
count = 0
while True:
count += 1
userNumber = int(input("Enter your guess: "))
if userNumber < myNumber:
print("Too small")
elif userNumber > myNumber:
print("Too large")
else:
print("You’ve got it in", count, "tries!")
break
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
Note that the code and its trace appear in the colors black, blue, orange, and green. Python’s
IDLE uses color coding to help the reader recognize various types of program elements.
The role of each color will be explained shortly.
To create or edit a Python module, try using Python’s IDLE (short for Integrated
DeveLopment Environment). To start IDLE, enter the idle or idle3 command at a terminal
prompt or launch its icon if it is available. You can also launch IDLE by double-clicking on
a Python source code file (any file with a .py extension) or by right-clicking on the file and
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Chapter 1 Basic Python Programming
selecting Open or Edit with IDLE. Make sure that your system is set to open IDLE when
files of this type are launched (this is the default on macOS but not on Windows).
IDLE gives you a shell window for interactively running Python expressions and statements.
Using IDLE, you can move back and forth between editor windows and the shell window to
develop and run complete programs. IDLE also formats your code and color-codes it.
4
When you open an existing Python file with IDLE, the file appears in an editor window, and
the shell pops up in a separate window. To run a program, move the cursor into the editor
window and press the F5 (function-5) key. Python compiles the code in the editor window
and runs it in the shell window.
If a Python program appears to hang or not quit normally, you can exit by pressing Ctrl+C
or closing the shell window.
Program Comments
A program comment is text ignored by the Python compiler but valuable to the reader as
documentation. An end-of-line comment in Python begins with a # symbol and extends to
the end of the current line. It is color-coded in red. For example:
# This is an end-of-line comment.
A multiline comment is a string enclosed in triple single quotes or triple double quotes.
Such comments, which are colored green, are also called docstrings, to indicate that they
can document major constructs within a program. The numberguess program shown
earlier includes two doc strings. The first one, at the top of the program file, serves as a
comment for the entire numberguess module. The second one, just below the header of the
main function, describes what this function does. As we shall see shortly, docstrings play a
critical role in giving help to a programmer within the Python shell.
Lexical Elements
The lexical elements in a language are the types of words or symbols used to construct
sentences. As in all high-level programming languages, some of Python’s basic symbols are
keywords, such as if, while, and def, which are colored orange. Also included among lexical
items are identifiers (names), literals (numbers, strings, and other built-in data structures),
operators, and delimiters (quotation marks, commas, parentheses, square brackets, and
braces). Among the identifiers are the names of built-in functions, which are colored purple.
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Basic Program Elements
All Python names, other than those of built-in functions, are color-coded in black, except
when they are introduced as function, class, or method names, in which case they appear
in blue. A name can begin with a letter or an underscore (_), followed by any number of
letters, underscores, or digits.
In this book, the names of modules, variables, functions, and methods are spelled in lower-
case letters. With the exception of modules, when one of these names contains one or more 5
embedded words, the embedded words are capitalized. The names of classes follow the
same conventions but begin with a capital letter. When a variable names a constant, all the
letters are uppercase, and an underscore separates any embedded words. Table 1-1 shows
examples of these naming conventions.
Use names that describe their role in a program. In general, variable names should
be nouns or adjectives (if they denote Boolean values), whereas function and method
names should be verbs if they denote actions, or nouns or adjectives if they denote values
returned.
Syntactic Elements
The syntactic elements in a language are the types of sentences (expressions, statements,
definitions, and other constructs) composed from the lexical elements. Unlike most high-
level languages, Python uses white space (spaces, tabs, or line breaks) to mark the syntax
of many types of sentences. This means that indentation and line breaks are significant in
Python code. A smart editor like Python’s IDLE can help indent code correctly. The pro-
grammer need not worry about separating sentences with semicolons and marking blocks
of sentences with braces. In this book, I use an indentation width of four spaces in all
Python code.
Literals
Numbers (integers or floating-point numbers) are written as they are in other program-
ming languages. The Boolean values True and False are keywords. Some data structures,
such as strings, tuples, lists, and dictionaries, also have literals, as you will see shortly.
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Chapter 1 Basic Python Programming
String Literals
You can enclose strings in single quotes, double quotes, or sets of three double quotes or
three single quotes. The last notation is useful for a string containing multiple lines of text.
Character values are single-character strings. The \ character is used to escape nongraphic
characters such as the newline (\n) and the tab (\t), or the \ character itself. The next code
6 segment, followed by the output, illustrates the possibilities.
print("Using double quotes")
print('Using single quotes')
print("Mentioning the word ‘Python’ by quoting it")
print("Embedding a\nline break with \\n")
print("""Embedding a
line break with triple quotes""")
Output:
Using double quotes
Using single quotes
Mentioning the word 'Python' by quoting it
Embedding a
line break with \n
Embedding a
line break with triple quotes
The operators have the standard precedence (selector, function call, subscript, arithmetic,
comparison, logical, assignment). Parentheses are used in the usual manner, to group sub-
expressions for earlier evaluation.
The ** and = operators are right associative, whereas the others are left associative.
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Basic Program Elements
Function Calls
Functions are called in the usual manner, with the function’s name followed by a parenthe-
sized list of arguments. For example:
min(5, 2) # Returns 2
Python includes a few standard functions, such as abs and round. Many other functions are 7
available by import from modules, as you will see shortly.
Like most other languages, Python allows operands of different numeric types in arithmetic
expressions. In those cases, the result type is the same type as the most general operand
type. For example, the addition of an int and a float produces a float as the result.
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Other documents randomly have
different content
CHAPTER XII
THE GREAT SECRET
Now, I didn’t think this was so very clever, and I don’t think master
did, but Mr. Bonstone was so enraptured that he paid a young man a
handsome sum to round out this song about the brown baby and set
it to music, and strange to say, the simple words and the air became
so popular that I even heard boys whistling it in the streets of New
York.
After a time, the poor mother died, and was buried at Mr. Bonstone’s
expense.
“My! my! what a funeral they gave her,” said old Ellen. “If ever the
Bonstones want anything from the Syrians on this avenue, all
they’ve got to do is to say it.”
I was greatly excited about our own baby, and oh! how I longed to
see it, but my turn did not come for several weeks.
Master used to motor out every afternoon to see how mother and
child were getting on, but I was always left in the car, till one day,
when I squealed wildly for permission to go in, master took me into
the big hospital, and a nurse wiped me all over with a damp cloth
which had something on it that smelled queer. I think she was afraid
of germs.
When I was ushered into the sunny, lovely room where sat my
mistress, I felt all broken up. She was as thin as a scarecrow, and
just about as good-looking.
“See, Rudolph,” cried the poor thing, “even the dog scarcely knows
me.”
After that, there was nothing to do but to run up to her, wag my tail,
twist my body, and pretend that I was charmed to see her. Perhaps I
should not say pretend. I really, by this time, had gotten to be so
sorry for my poor mistress, that I pitied her—and when a dog pities
any one, it is only a step to love. Then I was sincerely and truly
delighted about the baby, because it had made my master happy,
quite happy. Of course, I should be jealous of it, but truly, when
master held it down for me to look at it, and I saw how gentle, and
harmless and helpless it was, with nothing but those two balled-up
fists to defend itself against the big, powerful world, something
swelled up inside me, and I vowed a good dog vow, that if any other
dog started to molest that little lump of flesh, I’d tear him limb from
limb.
I licked its little dress, and the nurse ran to get a dish with some
solution in it to wash the place I’d touched. Really, these nurses and
doctors carry things too far with their germ theories. Why wasn’t
master just as likely to have germs as I. We had both come through
the same parts of the city. Besides, I’m as clean as a whistle. Every
day Louis brushes me, and cleans my ears, and occasionally I have a
bath. Not too often, for it is not natural for dogs to be kept in soak.
Well—to come back to the day of my first visit to the baby. Master
was so pleased to think I liked the baby, that I got an extra share of
petting on the way home.
We were alone in the car, and I was sitting close up beside him. As
we were passing through Mount Vernon I began to think of the Lady
Gay cat. That cat had been on my mind for a long time, and one
evening I had scampered down to her eating-house on Sixth Avenue
to see how she was getting along.
She was not there. She had left some time ago, another cat told me,
after I had persuaded him to stand long enough for me to question
him. I wondered what had become of her. Had she found her way
back to this pretty place to her own good mistress, or was she dead
or perhaps stolen again?
THE LADY GAY CAT
CHAPTER XIII
THE LADY GAY CAT