You're reading from Python Parallel Programming Cookbook Master efficient parallel programming to build powerful applications using Python

Product type Paperback

Published in Aug 2015

Publisher

ISBN-13 9781785289583

Length 286 pages

Edition 1st Edition

Languages

Python

Concepts

Parallel Programming

Author (1):

Giancarlo Zaccone

View More author details

Table of Contents (8) Chapters

Preface

1. Getting Started with Parallel Computing and Python FREE CHAPTER

2. Thread-based Parallelism

3. Process-based Parallelism

4. Asynchronous Programming

5. Distributed Python

6. GPU Programming with Python

Index

Introducing Python

Python is a powerful, dynamic, and interpreted programming language that is used in a wide variety of applications. Some of its features include:

A clear and readable syntax
A very extensive standard library, where through additional software modules, we can add data types, functions, and objects
Easy-to-learn rapid development and debugging; the development of Python code in Python can be up to 10 times faster than the C/C++ code
Exception-based error handling
A strong introspection functionality
Richness of documentation and software community

Python can be seen as a glue language. Using Python, better applications can be developed because different kinds of programmers can work together on a project. For example, when building a scientific application, C/C++ programmers can implement efficient numerical algorithms, while scientists on the same project can write Python programs that test and use those algorithms. Scientists don't have to learn a low-level programming language and a C/C++ programmer doesn't need to understand the science involved.

Note

You can read more about this from https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/), and Sublime Text, (http://www.sublimetext.com/).

How to do it…

Let's take a look at some examples of the very basic code to get an idea of the features of Python. Remember that the symbol >>> denotes the Python shell:

Operations with integers:
```
>>> # This is a comment
>>> width = 20
>>> height = 5*9
>>> width * height
900
```
Only for this first example, we will see how the code appears in the Python shell:

Let's see the other basic examples:

Complex numbers:

>>> a=1.5+0.5j
>>> a.real
1.5
>>> a.imag
0.5
>>> abs(a)  # sqrt(a.real**2 + a.imag**2)
5.0

Strings manipulation:

>>> word = 'Help' + 'A'
>>> word
'HelpA'
>>> word[4]
'A'
>>> word[0:2]
'He'
>>> word[-1]     # The last character
'A'

Defining lists:

>>> a = ['spam', 'eggs', 100, 1234]
>>> a[0]
'spam'
>>> a[3]
1234
>>> a[-2]
100
>>> a[1:-1]
['eggs', 100]
>>> len(a)
4

The while loop:

# Fibonacci series:
>>> while b < 10:
...       print b
...       a, b = b, a+b
... 
1
1
2
3
5
8

The if command:

First we use the input() statement to insert an integer:

>>>x = int(input("Please enter an integer here: "))
Please enter an integer here:

Then we implement the if condition on the number inserted:

>>>if x < 0:
...      print ('the number is negative')
...elif x == 0:
...      print ('the number is zero')
...elif x == 1:
...      print ('the number is one')
...else:
...      print ('More')
...

The for loop:

>>> # Measure some strings:
... a = ['cat', 'window', 'defenestrate']
>>> for x in a:
...     print (x, len(x))
... 
cat 3
window 6
defenestrate 12

Defining functions:

>>> def fib(n):    # write Fibonacci series up to n
...     """Print a Fibonacci series up to n."""
...     a, b = 0, 1
...     while b < n:
...         print (b),
...         a, b = b, a+b
... 
>>> # Now call the function we just defined:
... fib(2000)
1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 233 377 610 987 1597

Importing modules:

>>> import math
>>> math.sin(1)
0.8414709848078965

>>> from math import *
>>> log(1)
0.0

Defining classes:

>>> class Complex:
...     def __init__(self, realpart, imagpart):
...         self.r = realpart
...         self.i = imagpart
... 
>>> x = Complex(3.0, -4.5)
>>> x.r, x.i
(3.0, -4.5)

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Published in: Aug 2015

Publisher:

ISBN-13: 9781785289583

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Authors (1)

Giancarlo Zaccone

Giancarlo Zaccone has over fifteen years' experience of managing research projects in the scientific and industrial domains. He is a software and systems engineer at the European Space Agency (ESTEC), where he mainly deals with the cybersecurity of satellite navigation systems. Giancarlo holds a master's degree in physics and an advanced master's degree in scientific computing. Giancarlo has already authored the following titles, available from Packt: Python Parallel Programming Cookbook (First Edition), Getting Started with TensorFlow, Deep Learning with TensorFlow (First Edition), and Deep Learning with TensorFlow (Second Edition).

See other products by Giancarlo Zaccone