Programming Style
Overview
Teaching: 5 min
Exercises: 5 minQuestions
How can I make my programs more readable?
How do most programmers format their code?
How can programs check their own operation?
Objectives
Provide sound justifications for basic rules of coding style.
Refactor one-page programs to make them more readable and justify the changes.
Use Python community coding standards (PEP-8).
Follow standard Python style in your code.
- PEP8:
a style guide for Python that discusses topics such as how you should name variables,
how you should use indentation in your code,
how you should structure your
import
statements, etc. Adhering to PEP8 makes it easier for other Python developers to read and understand your code, and to understand what their contributions should look like. The PEP8 application and Python library can check your code for compliance with PEP8.
Best Practice: Write programs for people and not for computers!
Use assertions to check for internal errors.
Assertions are a simple, but powerful method for making sure that the context in which your code is executing is as you expect.
def calc_bulk_density(mass, volume):
'''Return dry bulk density = powder mass / powder volume.'''
assert volume > 0
return mass / volume
If the assertion is False
, the Python interpreter raises an AssertionError
runtime exception. The source code for the expression that failed will be displayed as part of the error message. To ignore assertions in your code run the interpreter with the ‘-O’ (optimize) switch. Assertions should contain only simple checks and never change the state of the program. For example, an assertion should never contain an assignment.
Best Practice: Plan for mistakes
Use docstrings to provide online help.
Best Practice: Document design & purpose, not just mechanics
- If the first thing in a function is a character string that is not assigned to a variable, Python attaches it to the function as the online help.
- Called a docstring (short for “documentation string”).
def average(values):
"Return average of values, or None if no values are supplied."
if len(values) == 0:
return None
return sum(values) / average(values)
help(average)
Help on function average in module __main__:
average(values)
Return average of values, or None if no values are supplied.
Multiline Strings
Often use multiline strings for documentation. These start and end with three quote characters (either single or double) and end with three matching characters.
"""This string spans multiple lines. Blank lines are allowed."""
What Will Be Shown?
Highlight the lines in the code below that will be available as online help. Are there lines that should be made available, but won’t be? Will any lines produce a syntax error or a runtime error?
"Find maximum edit distance between multiple sequences." # This finds the maximum distance between all sequences. def overall_max(sequences): '''Determine overall maximum edit distance.''' highest = 0 for left in sequences: for right in sequences: '''Avoid checking sequence against itself.''' if left != right: this = edit_distance(left, right) highest = max(highest, this) # Report. return highest
Document This
Turn the comment on the following function into a docstring and check that
help
displays it properly.def middle(a, b, c): # Return the middle value of three. # Assumes the values can actually be compared. values = [a, b, c] values.sort() return values[1]
Clean Up This Code
- Read this short program and try to predict what it does.
- Run it: how accurate was your prediction?
- Refactor the program to make it more readable. Remember to run it after each change to ensure its behavior hasn’t changed.
- Compare your rewrite with your neighbor’s. What did you do the same? What did you do differently, and why?
import sys n = int(sys.argv[1]) s = sys.argv[2] print(s) i = 0 while i < n: # print('at', j) new = '' for j in range(len(s)): left = j-1 right = (j+1)%len(s) if s[left]==s[right]: new += '-' else: new += '*' s=''.join(new) print(s) i += 1
Solution
Here’s one solution.
def string_machine(input_string, iterations): """ Takes input_string and generates a new string with -'s and *'s corresponding to characters that have identical adjacent characters or not, respectively. Iterates through this procedure with the resultant strings for the supplied number of iterations. """ print(input_string) old = input_string for i in range(iterations): new = '' # iterate through characters in previous string for j in range(len(s)): left = j-1 right = (j+1)%len(s) # ensure right index wraps around if old[left]==old[right]: new += '-' else: new += '*' print(new) # store new string as old old = new string_machine('et cetera', 10)
Key Points
Follow standard Python style in your code.
Use docstrings to provide online help.