Python III: Data Structures

This module provides an introduction to fundamental data structures in Python. Students will learn about building complex data types from basic elements such as Booleans, integers, floating point numbers, and characters. The module establishes the foundation for understanding how these basic types can be organized into more sophisticated structures like strings, lists, and dictionaries that can be stored in files. This knowledge forms the essential groundwork for all subsequent modules in the course.

This module focuses on working with series of characters in Python that can represent plaintext messages, passwords, and other text-based data. Students will learn advanced string methods and techniques for manipulating and processing text. The module addresses the complexities of combining human language with programming code, including parsing, formatting, and transforming strings. Students will develop skills to perform complex reasoning and operations with textual data, such as creating case-alternating text or extracting specific information from strings.

This module explores how to organize fundamental data types like strings, integers, and floats into tuples or lists that can represent complex structures of data. Students will learn to create, manipulate, and process collections of items, including nested structures such as lists of lists to create multi-dimensional data structures. The module covers techniques for iterating through lists, modifying elements, and performing operations across collections of data, enabling students to handle more complex computational problems like calculating statistics for a dataset or processing multiple related pieces of information together.

This module covers techniques for taking information stored in code and persisting it in external files that can last after the program has finished executing, as well as loading data from files into a program for processing. Students will learn various modes for file access, error handling strategies for file operations, and methods for reading and writing different types of data. The module addresses how to create programs that can maintain data between executions, such as a gradebook application that tracks and updates information over time, allowing for the development of more sophisticated and practical applications.

This module focuses on organizing key-value pairs (similar to variables and values) into higher-level structures that can be easily passed around or reused with intuitive structure. Students will learn how to create, access, and modify dictionaries, as well as how to use them to replicate object-oriented reasoning in Python. The module covers techniques for using dictionaries to represent complex data types, model real-world objects and relationships, and efficiently store and retrieve information based on meaningful keys rather than numeric indices, enabling more natural and readable code for complex data processing tasks.