Data Types in Python

Hi there!

This blog is inspired by Python Basics for Data Science course EDX by IBM.

Let’s start this journey by first knowing some widely used data types in Python:

1. Integer denoted as int, there is a finite range of integers but it is quite large such as,

…….-3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, …..

2. Float denoted as float, includes real numbers for eg,

…….-0.3, -0.2, -0.1, 0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3……

3. String denoted as str is a sequence of characters and it takes values like:

“hello world ” , ‘hello world’

NOTE-> Strings can be written in both single as well as in double quotes.

We can also change one data type to another, this is called “typecasting” which are mainly of 3 types:

• Int() : Int() function take float or string as an argument and return int type object.
• float() : float() function take int or string as an argument and return float type object.
• str() : str() function take float or int as an argument and return string type object.

For eg.

int(3.14):3

int(“4”): 4

str(1): “1”

str(1.1): “1”

float(2): 2.0

Boolean is another important type in Python, it can take on two values i.e. True or False.
Using the type command on a Boolean value, we obtain the term bool.
This is short for Boolean, if we cast a Boolean True to an integer or
float, we will get a 1.

i.e.

int(True)->1

int(False)->0

If we cast a Boolean False to an integer or float, we get a 0.
If we cast a 1 to a Boolean, we get a True.
Similarly, if we cast a 0 to a Boolean, we get a False.

i.e.

bool(1)-> True

bool(0)-> False