This course combines engaging instructor-led presentations and useful demonstrations with valuable hands-on labs and engaging group activities. Throughout the course you'll learn how to:  

• Create working Python scripts following best practices 
• Use python data types appropriately 
• Read and write files with both text and binary data 
• Search and replace text with regular expressions 
• Get familiar with the standard library and its work-saving modules 
• Use lesser known but powerful Python data types 
• Create real-world, professional Python applications 
• Work with dates, times, and calendars 
• Know when to use collections such as lists, tuples, dictionaries, and sets 
• Understand Pythonic features such as list comprehensions and generators 
• Write robust code using exception handling 
• Create and use virtual environments 

If your team requires different topics, additional skills or a custom approach, our team will collaborate with you to adjust the course to focus on your specific learning objectives and goals. 

This course is geared for technical users who are new to Python. Roles might include developers, software engineers, data analysts who want to enhance data processing, system administrators and web site administrators who want to use Python to support their server installations, developers who want more efficient web solutions, as well as anyone else who wants to automate or simplify common tasks with the use of Python scripts. 

If you are coming from a non-technical background, you might consider the TTPS4803: Python for Everyone: Getting Started with Python Basics for Non-Developers (4 days) as an alternative to this course.  

The Python Environment 

• Starting Python 
• Using the interpreter 
• Running a Python script 
• Editors and IDEs 

Variables and Values 

• Using variables 
• Builtin functions 
• String data 
• Numeric data 
• Converting types 

Basic input and output 

• Writing to the screen 
• String formatting 
• Command line arguments 
• Reading the keyboard 

Flow Control 

• About flow control 
• The if statement 
• Relational and Boolean values 
• while loops 
• Exiting from loops 

Array types 

• Sequence types in general 
• Lists and list methods 
• Tuples 
• Indexing and slicing 
• Iterating through a sequence 
• Sequence functions, keywords, and operators 
• List comprehensions and generators 

Working with files 

• File I/O overview 
• Opening a text file 
• Reading a text file 
• Writing to a text file 

Dictionaries and Sets 

• About dictionaries 
• Creating dictionaries 
• Getting values 
• Iterating through a dictionary 
• About sets 
• Creating sets 
• Working with sets 

Functions 

• Defining functions 
• Returning values 
• Parameters and arguments 
• Variable scope 

Sorting 

• The sorted() function 
• Custom sort keys 
• Lambda functions 
• Sorting in reverse 
• Using min() and max() 

Exception handling and logging 

• Exceptions 
• Using try/catch/else/finally 
• Handling multiple exceptions 
• Logging setup 
• Basic logging 

Modules and Packages 

• Creating Modules 
• The import statement 
• Module search path 
• Using packages 
• Function and Module aliases 

Introduction to Classes 

• About object-oriented programming 
• Defining classes 
• Constructors 
• Understanding self 
• Properties 
• Instance Methods and data 
• Class methods and data 
• Inheritance 

Regular Expressions 

• RE syntax overview 
• RE objects 
• Searching and matching 
• Compilation flags 
• Groups and special groups 
• Search-and-replace 
• Splitting strings 

Dates and times 

• Date and time representations 
• Parsing dates from text 
• Formatting as text 
• Converting representations 
• Calendar data 
• Time zones 

Working with the file system 

• Paths, directories, and filenames 
• Checking for existence 
• Permissions and other file attributes 
• Walking directory trees 
• Using shutil for file operations 

Advanced data handling 

• Defaultdict and Counter 
• Pretty-printing data structures 
• Compressed archives (zip, gzip, tar, etc.) 
• Persistent data 

Network programming 

• Using requests 
• Grabbing web content 
• Sending email 
• Using SSH for remote access 
• Using FTP 

Effective Scripts 

• Reading input files a la Unix 
• Parsing command-line options 
• Detecting the current platform 
• Implementing logging 

Virtual Environments 

• Why are virtual environments needed 
• Creating a virtual env 
• Replicating an environment 
• Virtual environment issues 

Addendum & Resources