Types summary

The following is a summary of the different Python types:

• string - Sequence type: Used for text.
• list- Sequence type: A mutable container with ordered elements.
• tuple - Sequence type: An immutable container with ordered elements.
• set  - Set type: A mutable container with unordered and unique elements.
• dict – Mapping type: A container with key-values associated elements.

Type conversion

Type conversion means converting from one data type to another. For example, if you read a number from input, it is read as a string, but you may want to convert it to an integer or floating-point in order to use it in a calculation later.

An implicit conversion is a type conversion that the interpreter does automatically. This typically happens between numeric types, for example if you were to add integer 5 + integer 3, it would return an integer 8, but if you add integer 5 + floating-point value 3.0, it would return a floating point value 8.0

There are some useful conversion functions that you can use:

• int(value) – converts value to an integer (You can pass a string that looks like it can be an integer, i.e. ‘25’)
• float(value) – converts value to a floating-point (You can pass a string that looks like it can be a floating-poing, i.e ’3.14’)
• str(value) – converts value to a string