How to order PCB for manufacturing from JLCPCB

JLCPCB (JiaLiChuang Co. Limited) is a worldwide PCB & PCBA Fabrication enterprise. It is a leading company in high-tech manufacturing products specializing in PCB and PCBA production. With over a decade of experience in PCB manufacturing JLCPCB has made over a million customers through online ordering by the customers of PCB manufacturing and PCBA production.

JLCPCB is a professional manufacturer of large-scale manufacturing of PCBs, well equipment, strict management, and superior quality. It deals with the production of all types of PCBs, Stencils, and SMT.

In this article, we are going to discuss widely how the company operates its ordering system of the PCBs by their customers for production through the online booking process.

JLCPCB SMT Services

Normally, SMT components are used in professional/industrial PCBs and JLCPCB offers the best SMT services. You should first check these JLCPCB SMT services to get an idea. Let me highlight its important points:

  • JLCPCB offers single-sided placement on the PCB board.
  • JLCPCB has an extensive Library for SMT parts and you need to select the components from there.
  • JLCPCB manufacture SMT Components in-house and thus gives the best results.
  • JLCPCB places automated solder paste and then performs Solder Paste Inspection(SPI).
  • I have attached the SMT Assembly screenshot in the below figure:
You can check JLCPCB SMT Services from this video as well:

So, it's quite easy to order for manufacturing of Metal Core PCB on JLCPCB.

How to place an order online

Ordering of PCB at JLCPCB is not a complicated process, since the system is user-friendly to every customer. The steps below show the steps to be followed when placing an order.

STEP 1:

Register on the official site of JLCPCB, if you don’t have an account. if you already have an account just log in

STEP 2:

After login into one account. It will display a home page with a quotation calendar that will display an ordering page. On the quotation calendar, the customer would be asked to enter the size of PCB which he/she requires, quantity, layers, and thickness of their choice

STEP 3:

In this step, the customer is required to enter the PCB board details on the online calculator to get the price of the quoted items in step 2. Also, there is the minimum price which is the cheapest one for a particular PCB.

STEP 4:

Then click to “Add your Gerber file” this will upload the file. There are written guidelines on how to generate different Gerber files in the best format on the well-known circuit design program found in the company industry. A very small customer ID is always added to the PCB ordered to distinguish the PCB order from all others.

If one wants to put it in a specific location you are required to indicate the location by adding a unique text like “PBCJLPBCJL”

The system will analyze the file Gerber to confirm the dimensions and layers of the board after uploading the Gerber file.

STEP 5:

Then click the “Gerber viewer” to the design of the boards. Customers are advised to confirm the Gerber file carefully for any errors. After checking and confirming the errors and no problem is detected just click “save to cart” and continue to the next step

STEP 6:

After saving to cart then click “add new item” if you want to order multiple PCBs repeat the same steps from the beginning as you add both of them to the cart.

STEP 7:

Expand the cart and view all the details of the PCBs ordered, including the price of each one of them, its specifications, and all the number of PCBs ordered.

STEP 8:

After viewing all the details in the cart and seeing all the PCBs you wanted click the “checkout securely” button

STEP 9:

On the checkout, menu add your shipping address where are the PCBs are to be shipped. The country where the PCBs are shipped determines the rates. Also, the shipping options are found on the same page just below the address. The shipping methods available are DHL and Airmail both of them vary in their delivery time.

This is the payment method. JLCPCB offers two kinds of payment methods which include

  1. Pay directly: this is the most recommended method of payment by the company. It is recommended since it ensures the high efficiency of manufacturing. If the customer file hasn’t been reviewed for production you will get a refund.
  2. Review before payment: one can pay after the file has been approved. In this method, the design will not be produced until payment is made. Results of the review will be made through email. It is recommended to pay as soon as the file is approved to avoid delivery delays. When the file is not approved the order is automatically canceled.

When the order payment is made the company arranges the production where you can go through your “ACCOUNT” menu to track your order status.

Adding a new order to your existing order

Customers may sometimes feel the urge to add a new order to the existing order. This may be because may feel the items ordered are not enough or an increase in demand for the PCBs which were previously ordered

Here below we are going to go through the steps of how to add a new order to the existing order in JLCPCB.

STEP 1: log in to your account and locate the existing order.

When you log in the process will only go through if the existing order is still in the production process. If the order is finished and delivered you will not be allowed to add an order unless you make a fresh order.

STEP 2: You will open the ordering page, upload the Gerber file and add the items you want and click “combine”. Also, this will only appear if there is an extra shipping cost for the order added.

STEP 3: when you click “combine” a new order will be added to the existing order and you can check on its progress.

 

How to track your orders

After placing your order and payment has been made successfully, you can track your order through your account on the company website. Let’s discuss the steps to track your orders.

STEP 1: Open your order history

Login to your account and account menu click order history. After clicking on order history it will direct you to a previously placed orders page where all your previous orders are listed indicating their current status

STEP 2: Check your order status

Once you open the product files column file review status will appear and also the order status in the order status column. Then click order details to learn more.

STEP 3: Track production process

When you are put I am production-ready to be processed. Click the production progress to check the process.

STEP 4: Track shipment status

Once the order has been put into production and processed shipment process takes place. Once the shipment process has started a shipment notification will be sent through your email advising you on the shipment status of your order and the shipping tracking number. One can also use the JLCPCB company website to track the parcel. While on the website click shipment tracking and all the details about your parcel and delivery time information will be displayed.

 

Instructions for ordering PCBs from JLCPCB

Some users experience confusion during the online ordering placement of the PCBs from the company. Below are instructions on some routine internal actions JLCPCB will make when they receive the order.

PCB file and Gerber file in the zip file at the same time

A Gerber file is a file containing the format of the printed circuit design which is used in the fabrication of data. So while ordering the printed circuit boards on your account if both Gerber files and PCB files are in your zip file, the system will follow the Gerber file and reject the PCB file.

Solder resistance bridges

When the person ordering the PCBs does not specify on the solder mask bridge which is importantly required, it will be ignored. When doing the solder-resistance bridge a spacing between the pins needs to be 0.254mm and special notes on doing that are required.

The English description and the attachments on the zip file

Zip file attachments such as PDF files, EXCEL, DXF files, etc are ignored and PCB will be done according to the Gerber file provided. One should ensure the correct parameters are chosen and those needed to be converted into a Gerber file when placing your order. If otherwise, zip files attachment are important should be added to the remark field.

Plated slots/edge (not longer than 6mm)

In the presence of plated slot or edge, they should not be longer than 6mm, and make a note about it when placing the order or the system will make it for you. In the case where no note is provided the company will assume it and make it in the normal process.

Software incompatible issues

Since there is the use of different software by different clients to design the printed circuit board and the software where Gerber data is processed is not the same as the software used in designing the data it sometimes causes the software incompatibility problems to appear. Due to the reason of no warning notification when transferring and importing the data into the software so it is not easily noticeable and cannot be confirmed to the customers. This makes the company responsible for some of the problems caused by software incompatibility.

Markings on base materials

There are some marking that sometimes appears on the base material. This is because of some security issues and there is a way it can be removed. There is no track on which PCB will have the mark so all the PCBs have equal chances of having the marks. One should check from their side whether it is accepted while placing the order.

Gerberview

This tab is functional for reasons of reviewing the file quickly before paying for the order. Acts as the preview button on the website. At times the website causes errors when there is something wrong to display it exactly so it is advisable before placing the order to check the file carefully when you feel there is doubt.

Design about slots/v-cut/cut out/millings

The customer should ensure the v-cut line, cut out and millings are located on the same layer with the board outline. If not on the same layer with the board line it will not appear. It is advised when one is placing the order should check carefully because when it is missed due they are not in the same layer with the board outline the company will not be responsible.

Silkscreen/text

When you want the silkscreen clear on the PCB board the width of the texts and space between letters should not be less than 0.15mm and a width of not less than 1mm. when outline is the font is made and the solid part is filled with lines the fillings then should not be less than 0.15mm. the company will not modify the silkscreen on the Gerber file but the text may be widened. If the text is not enough the company will not be responsible for any complaints made regarding unclear texts caused by nonstandard design.

Layer PCB

JLCPCB company does not make 3 layer PCBs. If one orders a 4 layer PCB with a single inner layer, the company will process it with the 4 layer process directly and confirm with the customer again. So before placing an order confirm whether there is an inner layer miss or not.

Repeat order

This is the placing of orders same just as the previous one which had been successfully processed. With these orders, the company will not make any changes to the file which was used in the production. The customer should ensure not to leave any related note for the order to be changed while placing the order since the repeated order will not be checked manually by the engineers.

Items found on the board outline

The board outline is used to show how the PCB will look like when made. So everything that needs to be included in the board should be cut out clearly on the board outline. You should avoid the least useful items to avoid confusion. When both the GKO layer and the GM1 layer are found on the Gerber file the engineers will ignore the GKO layer and make boards according to the GM1 layer. when GMI, GM2 or GM2, GM3, GM4 layers are in the Gerber file at the same time, engineers will go for the smallest number after the letter GM as the outline layer by default.

JLCPCB panel

When you place an order to JLCPCB the JLCPCB panel will panel the order by default with the v-cut. JLCPCB only panels PCBs with rectangular and circle shapes. When you penalize the boards yourself but choose “Single PCB” when ordering, the numbers of designs/boards in the Gerber file should not be greater than 5, otherwise, we may cancel this order. If “Panel by Customer” has been chosen, the designs in the panelized Gerber file should not be greater than 10.

The remark field

The remark field is used when you place your order so that you can leave a note in case of any import, but the company does not recommend the use of this option since all the orders with an English note will take a longer time to get through the audition process.

Board larger than 200mm*250mm

Large boards sometimes the company might consider them, but if the good board available can not meet the quantity like the one ordered on the website due to the high cost of production they will ship the good boards and refund the difference to you.

Thickness of board outline design

The recommended thickness design of boards outlined by the company is 0.15mm. in a case when the board is greater than 0.15mm the centerline will be followed to make the board outline

Order cancellation

Orders missing crucial information such as the board outline, solder mask layer the order will be canceled out clearly during the audit process.

Orders beyond company capabilities

Orders beyond the company and engineers’ capabilities, will be canceled directly and an email will be sent to inform you about the reason. So before placing an order kindly check your file carefully before you pay for the order to save the loss due to the cancellation.

Removal of the order number

Order removal will not affect the functions of the boards if JLCPCB puts the order number at random or miss to remove. The removal of the order number will be refunded.

Easyeda generated file

Easyeda is a free online tool that we provide to design the PCB, and you can place your order on JLCPCB easily and quickly. But if there is a manufacturer error due to the design error, we may not responsible for that.

Silkscreen and solder mask openings

When the silkscreen overlaps with the openings on the board surface, the principle of openings first will be put into consideration. we will ignore the silkscreen and make the openings on the boards only. In the case where you want to keep the silkscreen on the openings, kindly make a note in the remark column so that the company engineers and factories pay attention to it and meet the required standards.

How to order PCB boards with solder mask defined pads

solder mask clearance is larger than the copper pad it’s exposing, in most PCBs, these pads are known as Non-Solder Mask Defined pads (NSMD).

Some of the other components have another type of solder mask called Solder Mask Defined pad. Which has a clearance of solder mask that is smaller than the copper pad. One can suggest pad and solder mask clearance size in the datasheet when applying. One should ensure that at least 3 mils (0.076mm) of the mask will be printed on all sides of the copper pad. The reason is registration tolerance on the solder mask placement if the mask is smaller than the pad there are possibilities that the mask could move enough exposing bare substrate which will lead to bad results.

How to transfer SMD INFORMATION TO JLCPCB

In the ordering system, there is no given option to add details on whether the board required has an SMD pad. If CAM engineers don’t get this kind of information the solder mask clearance for SMD pads will be enlarged to its default size.

When transferring SMD information to JLCPCB the following steps are used

Write a special instruction

On your account page in the ordering system, there is a text box called “PCB Remark”

Write a special instruction informing JLCPCB that your order design has an SMD pad

Confirm production file

After writhing the special instruction on the Remark box select “yes” for the “confirm production file” option

On clicking yes, the JLCPCB engineers will come up with a production file that is required to manufacture the PCB. When the production is put into consideration a check notification will appear where you can check and confirm it before reproduction. An email will be sent to you when the file is complete and ready for production. Download the processed Gerbers, pay attention to inspect the solder mask clearance for the SMD pads

Benefits of the ordering PCBs from JLCPCB

  1. Higher quality: JLCPCB has advanced its production technology by providing high precision boards suitable for industrial, military, and medical applications.
  2. Low cost: the company’s mission is to efficiently increase its production of PCB board at a lower cost. JLCPCB produces the cheapest but most efficient PCBs possibly because of extremely high production efficiency, and less human resource cost.
  • Fast delivery and user-friendly online ordering platform: the easy online ordering process have led the company to be a leading manufacturer of PCB with efficient and professional customer service, digital technology used in manufacturing, automatic production lines

and their able logistics partners make every step to deliver your PCBs faster.

  1. Shorten turn around time: PCB prototypes can be made faster even within 24hours because of the automated equipment and the fast technology we utilize the available capacity of our factories network so that system can match your orders to one of our factories which is best suited, in the shortest turnaround time.

Conclusion

JLCPCB is a good company since it provides great customer satisfaction, as long as you consider the time differences, and try to make orders with enough time to respond during your working days, and making orders, not near the weekend, they are well worth the money saved and the simple interface.

Their chat support is fairly good, and the assembly service is also mostly good.

Cloud Computing Advantages

Hi Guys! Hope you’re well today. Thank you for clicking this read. In this post today, I’ll walk through Cloud Computing Advantages.

Growing a business requires keeping up with modern technologies. And cloud computing is no different. Even though it’s not a new term and has been around for a long while, it still encompasses a huge potential to effectively run and manage business operations. Cloud computing is the provision of computing resources over the internet. These resources include storage, processing power, and databases.

Integrating more technologies (like IoT, AI) into the business models means it opens up opportunities to produce a large amount of data. And it’s very challenging to store and process that data on on-site data centers. This is where cloud computing comes in handy. It has the potential to effectively handle the flood of data while giving remote access to the developers to manage that data from anywhere in the world.

I suggest you read this entire article as it aims to cover the advantages of cloud computing.

Keep reading.

Cloud Computing Advantages

Cloud computing comes with scores of benefits. A few of them include cost saving, scalability, mobility, unlimited storage, security, instant collaboration, automatic software update, and more. we’ve discussed them one by one in the section below.

1: Cost Saving

Cost is crucial when it comes to successfully running your business. You need to take careful steps to spend capital investments. Using traditional ways to handle your data allows you to spend an upfront payment for the installation of complex IT hardware infrastructure. And this is not enough. You need money to maintain, scale and upgrade that system to effectively handle your data. Cloud computing prevents you from setting up hardware on-site and your data is managed and stored remotely over the cloud with data centers. You don’t need experts to use computing resources. Everything will be taken care of by the cloud service provider.

2: Scalability

Scalability is another big advantage that comes with cloud computing. You are not bound to pay for all the computing resources. Service providers offer pay-as-you-go service which means you’ll only pay for the resources you use for your business. For instance, you can pick the specific bandwidth, storage, and processing power to handle and store the data. Business requirements increase as the business grows over time. And at times it happens, based on the customer’s current needs and requirements you need to customize the approach. If you require less storage and processing power, you can ask for it from the service provider.

3: Mobility

Cloud computing offers mobility which means your data is not stored in any specific computer hard drive. That data is available online and anyone with an internet connection can access that data. This saves you from program failures or power shutdown. If the system on your location is not working, you can access the data from a different location as long as you have the device to work on and a strong internet connection.

4: Unlimited Storage Capacity

With cloud computing, you create a virtual office to handle the onslaught of data. It gives you the power to ask for unlimited virtual access to handle that data. With traditional data centers, creating unlimited storage capacity is very difficult since you need to upgrade the hardware which requires huge investments. This is not the case with cloud computing. Data centers are handled globally by the service provider and you only pay for the resources you use.

5: Security

Security is important to turn your business into a brand. More customers will rely on your applications if they know the information they share with you is safe and carefully handled. Data on the cloud computing servers is secure. No need to worry in case your sensitive data is deleted. Data centers on cloud computing are located at different locations and they create the copy of your data at different locations. This means if you’ve lost the data or the server at one location is down, you can use another server from a different location to claim that data. Cloud computing also offers an access management feature that gives access to sensitive data to your employees only, preventing that data from being attacked by potential hackers.

6: Instant Collaboration

Cloud computing allows instant collaboration between workers. Especially if you are working with freelancers or employees from remote locations. Any file or information shared on cloud computing gives instant access to that data from anywhere in the world. For instance, Google Drive or Dropbox are examples of cloud computing. Data available on these applications can be accessed by anyone anytime.

7: Automatic Software Update

The software and applications available on cloud computing get updated automatically. You don’t need IT experts to do manual updates. This is the job of your service provider. They instantly update their systems and software for security purposes to avoid any potential threats.

8: High Speed

In cloud computing data is managed over the internet. This means you can easily try new ideas and can simply apply new tweaks in the software within seconds. The data is remotely handled and any new software deployment gives you instant access to find the information in the software or any newly introduced application.

9: Disaster Recovery and Back-up

Cloud computing offers disaster recovery and backup features. At times the updates on your applications don’t work out and you instantly require the previous version. Cloud servers store the backup of your previous version. And if one server is down, cloud computing quickly moves the customers to the running servers, preventing you from big financial loss.

10: Better Control

Cloud computing allows you to have better control over data. It gives you different types of cloud models to pick from like public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid cloud. If you want to process your sensitive data locally, you can pick a private cloud, or if you want to store a large amount of data you can pick a public cloud. And the hybrid cloud is the combination of both private and public cloud which allows you the selectively handle and process your data over different clouds. Moreover, if you don’t want to remain dependent on one service provider, you can get services from two different service providers, this gives you to have better control over your sensitive data.

11: Competitive Advantage

Not every company picks cloud services to handle data. Some are not even aware of this architecture and even if they are aware, they are not willing to incorporate this infrastructure into this business model. If you choose cloud computing to manage your data, you will remain ahead of your competitors and can better store and process your data.

Conclusion

Cloud computing gives you benefits like security, scalability, unlimited data storage, data recovery, high speed, and more.

One wrong move in the initial steps of picking the right service provider can drastically impact your business.

It takes the right knowledge and skill to implement cloud computing into any business model.

Make sure you’re handling your sensitive data in the right hands who know how to effectively incorporate this cloud model into your organization.

Rest assured, if the service provider is reputable and expert in what they do, you’ll be better off with the cloud model to enhance the productivity, revenue, security, and collaboration of your enterprise.

That’s all for today. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading this article. If you’re unsure or have any questions, you can reach me in the section below. I’d love to assist you in the best way possible. Thank you for reading this post.

Types of Cloud Computing

Hi Guys! Happy to see you around. Thank you for clicking this read. In this post today, I’ll walk you through Types of Cloud Computing.

Cloud computing is not a new term. Companies have been using this infrastructure for the past two decades. You might be familiar with this term, in case you don’t, cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computing resources over the internet. Simply put, you can process, store and manage a large amount of data using this architecture. The companies offering these services to end-users are called Cloud Service Providers (CSP). And most of these services offer the pay-as-you-go model which means you can ask for only those computing resources required for your business; you don’t pay for the resources you don’t use in the cloud computing model. This liberates you from using on-site data centers for managing data, and you get computing resources online including storage, processing power, and databases.

I suggest you read this post all the way through as I’ll thoroughly cover the Types of Cloud Computing and how they can be used for improving the activities of any business.

Scroll on.

Types of Cloud Computing

Earlier on-site data centers were a norm for the management of large amounts of data, but cloud computing has gained momentum due to its ability to effectively manage and store the onslaught of data online. Moreover, since these resources are available online, you don’t need hectic IT drills to install, manage, scale or update traditional data centers. These data centers over the cloud are globally managed to give you access from anywhere in the world.

The following are the main types of cloud computing.

1: Public Cloud

2: Private Cloud

3: Hybrid Cloud

4: Community Cloud

No two clouds are the same and picking the cloud type is dependent on the business needs and requirements. Every cloud enables computing power over the network and allows the running of workloads within that system. These cloud models differ in terms of storage capacity, location, and accessibility but they all work on the same principle of virtualization. There is a lot of confusion in each type and I’ll try my best to remove these confusions so you can better understand what each type is all about. We’ll discuss them one by one in the section below.

1: Public Cloud

Public clouds are typically created for businesses but they are not owned by the individual business. Public cloud providers manage and run these clouds and offer services to organizations based on their current needs and requirements. The common public cloud providers include:

  • Amazon Web Services
  • IBM Cloud
  • Google Cloud
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Alibaba Cloud

This is the most cost-effective option for organizations that don’t have enough capital to invest in the development of IT infrastructure. Public cloud resources are shared by a variety of end-users which means this model is not made for a specific business. Instead, computing resources are shared among businesses of all sizes.

Although this is the preferably best option for businesses to handle a large amount of data, this model doesn’t guarantee the security of sensitive data since this architecture is shared by multiple organizations.

Moreover, this infrastructure offers less customization options and the service providers hold the main authority. A single tweak from the provider’s side can drastically impact your business. For improved security and better control over data, a private cloud is used.

2: Private Cloud

In a private cloud, computing resources are owned by a single organization. This model offers two options: resources can be hosted on-site IT infrastructure or businesses can hire a third party to host their computing resources.

Compared to the public cloud, this model is a bit expensive since it gives you more customization power with improved security. Companies dealing with sensitive data can pick this model since here resources are not shared by a variety of businesses.

Private cloud, if hosted on on-site data centers, gives you the power to fully control the computing resources and make the adjustment based on your internal processes and preferences. Even though this model gives you more control, you require professional IT experts to handle and manage the private cloud on-site. If you don’t want to involve yourself in the nitty-gritty of handling complex IT infrastructure required for private cloud, you can get services from a third party to host and manage your resources on their system. This way you still own the private cloud but you require less technical expertise for handling this model.

Better security is another advantage that comes with a private cloud. Companies require a large amount of data to be handled and stored and in the public cloud that data is vulnerable to cyber-attacks since the computing resources are shared by multiple end-users. To prevent your sensitive data from being compromised or deleted, it is better to keep this type of data within your private security boundary so no one can manipulate your data for their advantage.

3: Hybrid Cloud

Hybrid cloud combines both private cloud and public cloud. You can share data and applications between two clouds using this cloud deployment model. This way workload is not handled by a single cloud architecture, instead, it is shared by two different cloud models.

For instance, organizations need unlimited storage capacity to store a large amount of data, public cloud comes in handy for this purpose for handling non-sensitive data. While, on the other hand, if companies want the processing of sensitive data on the premises of their business, the private cloud is the solution.

Hybrid models are common since they set you free from the long-term investment on a specific cloud model, instead, you can use the combination of both models and ask for required computing resources valuable for your business.

4: Community Cloud

Community cloud is valuable for those sharing common business goals. A variety of businesses use cloud computing models including healthcare, education, manufacturing industries, IT sector, and more. Community cloud is suitable for companies falling under the same business model. For instance, organizations falling under the education sector can pick for community cloud with similar computing resources and storage power. Cost is another factor behind the popularity of this model. The resources cost is split between the organizations picking this cloud model.

Uncommon Cloud Types

If you’re still reading this post, it means you have got a clear idea about the four main types of cloud models. However, there are also less common cloud types used for specific purposes. These types include:

A: Multicloud

Don’t get confused. This is different from hybrid cloud. In a hybrid infrastructure, companies can get computing resources from both the private and public cloud. While Multicloud is not the combination of different clouds, instead it’s the provision of computing resources from two different cloud service providers. For instance, you can ask for public cloud resources from two different providers to avoid dependency on one single provider.

B: Distributed Cloud

At its core, a distributed cloud is an architecture that runs from multiple locations but is not owned by a single organization. This model is used to meet the company’s specific performance and compliance needs and it does support edge computing but essentially is managed and controlled by the public cloud provider.

C: HPC Cloud

This model is particularly developed to support high-performance computing applications. This model is useful if you want to perform research on a large scale and are looking for a solution for advanced computing problems.

Conclusion

Every business is unique.

It’s your job to carefully monitor the activities of your business and put dedicated thought to pick the particular cloud computing model for your business.

How you want your data to be managed, processed, and stored does matter. If you want to handle a large amount of data, the public cloud is a valuable solution. And if you want the sensitive data to be processed locally, the private cloud is the answer.

And the best part?

You can deploy both private and public cloud models to selectively handle sensitive and non-sensitive data.

And if you don’t want to remain dependent on a single service provider, you can leverage the services of two providers and use them to your advantage.

Make sure you consider the proper security protocols before picking up the right architecture. A single mistake in the initial steps of choosing the cloud model can drastically impact your business in the long run. So be careful.

That’s all for today. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading this article. Share your experience with cloud computing in the section below. If you’re unsure or have any questions about cloud computing, ask me in the comment section. I’d love to help you the best way I can. Thank you for reading this article.

Adding Home Tech Devices Without Busting the Budget

Are you planning to spruce up your home with a few of the latest high-tech devices? Then you're in luck with the recent engineering advances that have brought all sorts of interesting, exciting products within reach of everyday homeowners. Some of the top-selling devices, apps, and gadgets have been around for several years but are only now priced to move, as merchants like to say. What's attracting today's homeowners? Several of the biggest sellers include next-generation LED lighting, smart plumbing products, advanced robotic vacuums, walkway lights that operate on solar energy, water faucet meters, ingenious power strips that save money, intrusion detection systems, and many more.

So far, the 2020s are turning out to be an era when engineering advances have come to the rescue of everyday consumers. That's true when it comes to convenience, safety, comfort, saving money, and efficiency. How can you make a plan to acquire your favorite tech products for the home? Start by choosing a few that are suited for your house or apartment, and then make a detailed budget to cover all the costs. Here's how to get started, along with a short listing of the current top selling favorite items.

Choose Three or Four Favorites

The most appropriate way to upgrade your home's technology profile is to select several products that fit in with your lifestyle, personal preferences, and budget. Depending on where you live and how large your dwelling is, some items will make more sense than others. There are many real-life products of Internet of Things that pertain to your home. If you're not sure about how much energy it takes to operate your home annually, check with your utility company before selecting an energy-saving device. As well, evaluate your need for things like robo-vacuums, shower meters, and walkway lights. Some homes just aren't good candidates for every gadget that comes along. After making a plan, move on to the budgeting phase of the operation.

Create a Budget That Covers All Expenses

Unless you have enough cash on hand to finance a major purchase, it's wise to consider taking out a personal loan to cover all the costs of upgrading your living space. Keep in mind that unless you're exceptionally handy, you'll likely need to hire professional installers for some tech products. When creating a budget, include the cost of both the item and installation. If you intend to purchase extended warranties, add that cost in too. Working with a lender to apply for a personal loan is the most efficient way to deal with home improvement costs like security systems, specialized lighting, and others. Many consumers are surprised to realize how easy it is to pay for everything at once with a loan.

Smart Plumbing

Cutting water use is easy with modern engineering on your side. Everyone has encountered the motion activated faucets in public restrooms. Now, you can install these same money saving devices in all your bathrooms, kitchens, and wherever there's running water. It might seem like a small issue, but smart faucets cut household water usage by as much as 10 percent for the average family. That means cutting utility bills significantly and saving money year-round.

Solar Walkway Lighting

If you like the ambiance and attractiveness of a lighted walkway in front of your house, check out some of the solar offerings available at improvement retailers. You can go small or extravagant with this project, but the upshot is that there's no wiring or electrical cost because the entire arrangement uses solar power. Some homeowners choose to line every cement or paved area with these lights. Not only do they look great and make your home literally shine after dark, but they help prevent falls.

Robo-Vacuums

Robo-vacs have been on the market for nearly two decades, but today's versions are better than ever. For one thing, they're quieter. They also use less energy, can monitor their paths with more precision, and come with high-tech filters as well as larger dust containers. For apartment residents, there are smaller vacs that are easier to store and don't take up much space. The high-end robo-vacs are lightweight powerhouses that do an excellent job of cleaning hardwood floors, linoleum, thick rugs, and numerous other surfaces. Some can automatically change their power levels based on the surfaces they detect.

Shower & Bath Water Meters

Recent breakthroughs in engineering made these clever gadgets possible. Not only do they measure the amount of water you're using or have used, but they also monitor the temperature to deliver a total readout of how much energy and water you use when showering, washing hands, or taking a bath. Meters are a convenient way to become aware of precisely what it costs to do ordinary daily chores and adjust your activities accordingly. For large families, cutting water usage in baths and showers can chop a sizeable chunk off the monthly bills for water and the electricity used to heat it.

Smart Power Strips

For those who like to minimize electricity use, the newest smart power strips can work in any room where you use multiple appliances. These days, that means pretty much every room in the house. Each strip includes several smart outlets that use motion detection to turn off things like lamps, TVs, and audio systems when they sense no human presence for a specified amount of time. Some of the outlets are standard, always on versions like you already have on your walls. The beauty of smart strips is that you'll never have to worry about leaving the lights on again.

Window & Door Intrusion Detectors

The latest security devices are all-around wonders that can detect any movement of windows and doors all through the house. Plus, you can monitor the entire system via an app on your phone, desktop computer, or from any remote device. Whether you're taking a nap or away on vacation, it's easy to set alarms that tell you when someone is attempting to enter your home. These ingenious products are ideal for any owner but especially for families who have small children and for adults who live alone.

What is Cloud Computing?

Hello Folks! Glad to have you on board. Thank you for clicking this read. In this post today I’ll walk you through What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is not a buzzword anymore. Even though most companies are familiar with this term, they don’t know what it does and how it works. If you’re one of them, this read is for you. In simple terms, cloud computing allows you to use computer system resources over the internet. This means you can manage your data remotely over the internet from anywhere in the world. We’ll touch this further in our article.

I suggest you read this post all the way through as I’ll cover what is cloud computing, how does it work, the types of cloud computing, the advantages of cloud computing, and the future of cloud computing.

Let’s get started.

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is a way of storing, processing, and managing data over the internet. Simply put, it’s the on-demand availability of IT resources online. These resources include data storage, computing power and databases. This way you don’t need to worry about handling data over the computer’s hard drive or on-site data centers. This liberates you from managing hardware circuits, software patching, and on-site IT drills, giving you online access over data centers through which you can efficiently manage and process your data.

With the onslaught of IT workloads, companies harness the power of cloud computing. It’s not only fast, economical, and secure, it also gives better control over data. No matter your location, as long as you have access to the internet, you can control your information online.

Google Drive and Dropbox are the best examples of cloud computing where you can access and manage your information online. Companies can use it for regular tasks like data processing, data management, software development, data protection, backup and disaster recovery, server virtualization, data analytics, and other real-time applications.

How Does Cloud Computing Work?

There are three basic parts of cloud computing.

1: Device (like computer, tablets, smartphones) through which you access data

2: Cloud with data centers where data is stored and processed

3: Internet which connects cloud with the device

You might be familiar with the term client-server model. Here user with the device is the client and the cloud with data centers are the servers while the internet connects the users with data centers.

Prior to cloud computing, handling and storing data was challenging. Companies used to install their own data centers that required proper maintenance and regular on-site check-ups to make sure they were running well, which resulted in more oversized bills and more space to accommodate them. It was impractical, expensive, and less efficient.

But cloud computing has dramatically changed this behavior. Now companies don’t need to worry about maintaining, scaling, securing, and managing their IT infrastructure, instead, they can focus on providing a better user experience with quality products. The organizations get these reousrces with pay-as-you-go terms which means the more resources they use the more they pay over time.

Companies that provide cloud computing services often offer monthly subscriptions and give users access to their computing resources. They don’t need to get in the hassle of updating servers, buying software, getting more machines to back up the data, and updating software to avoid potential security threats. The service provider takes care of all of that for them.

Types of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is perfect for businesses that have a lot of data to deal with. Cloud computing is mainly divided into three major types.

Public Cloud:

The public cloud offers compute resources like storage, memory, networking, and CPU. Public cloud vendors host these resources with globally and fully managed data centers. You can pay the vendors and rent these resources to develop your IT infrastructure.

The managed services in the compute resources include security systems and database servers that set you free from the hectic drill of managing and installing the whole solution into your local and on-site data centers.

The common leading providers of cloud computing services include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Microsoft Azure. You can hire the compute resources from these vendors as per the needs and complexity of your business operations.

Private Cloud

The public cloud is shared by a range of organizations while the private cloud, on the other hand, is specifically developed to meet the business needs of a single organization.

Some businesses don’t feel comfortable working with the public cloud. They want their separate and private cloud on their on-site data centers. Private cloud is perfect and ideally suited for single private organizations.

Two options there: companies can host private cloud or they can involve third-party vendors to host their private cloud on their system. This gives them the ability to immediately get access to the compute power based on their businesses. This setup is best for businesses that are a bit obsessed with the security of their systems.

Hybrid Cloud

Hybrid cloud gives you the ability to combine both public and private cloud and use them to your advantage. You can use either of them for a specific purpose. For instance, you may want to get unlimited storage space from the public cloud but you want to process the sensitive data on your private cloud.

This means if you running out of computing resources from the private cloud you can get the services of the public cloud to fulfill your business needs. It gives businesses advanced flexibility to move data across both clouds without a full commitment to the public cloud’s vendor.

And cost management is another blessing that comes with hybrid cloud. If you own a private cloud you need to install data centers on-site which require proper care and a capital expense. But with the public cloud, you only pay for resources without having to worry about the management of data centers.

Advantages of Cloud Computing

Now you know what is cloud computing and how does it work. Perfect. There are several advantages of cloud computing. A few of them include:

  1. It is cost-effective. The clients demand the service from the companies offering cloud services. Cost may differ for every service depending on the storage and computing power you demand. This way companies don’t need to spend money on purchasing installing and managing IT data centers, instead, they can purchase required computing resources from the service provider.
  2. Flexibility is another advantage that this infrastructure offers. This is not static, but a dynamic and flexible process. You can process and access data from anywhere in the world no matter your location, giving you the chance to scale up your business as you like better and manage data from the locations optimal for your business.
  3. Cloud computing is scalable. Yes, you can increase or decrease the demand for computing resources from cloud service providers as you run your business. This means computing power is directly related to the activities of your business. If at a certain stage you feel you require fewer data to manage and process, you can ask for less bandwidth in your next package. You can even add more users to your plan. Plus, you can even collaborate with multiple service providers at a time depending on your business.
  4. Cloud computing makes data processing fast. This is a centralized approach and the cloud service provider offer access to their data centers that are managed and controlled by experts. Accessing data online from a centralized system makes your data secure and safe.
  5. Cloud service providers strive to comply with their infrastructure with standard protocols. They keep updating their systems and data centers, providing an excellent and reliable user experience. No outsider can play with your data. Only you have access to that data and you can modify and manage it as you see fit.

The Future Trends Of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing becomes a necessary part of the business as the requirement to manage and store a large amount of data grows. And this trend will definitely increase as managing data in on-site data centers is not only expensive, it requires a lot of IT drills to properly install and maintain machines handling and storing data.

We can expect the following future trends in cloud computing.

  • Companies are willing to incorporate hybrid cloud computing into their IT model. Hybrid cloud computing is the combination of both public cloud and private. This infrastructure is mainly used to move data between private and public clouds, providing more flexibility to the users to satisfy their computing needs. What makes hybrid computing so special is its ability to process both analog and digital data. The market of hybrid computing is expected to touch $97.6 billion by 2023.
  • It’s almost impossible to run a successful business without making a footing in an online world. And cyber-attacks, system failures, and data outages are the norm when it comes to managing data online. Cloud computing offers backup and disaster recovery solutions in case of emergency. It creates the copy of your sensitive electronic data and store it miles away in data centers. And if your data original data is lost or compromised, you can ask for a copy of that data from cloud servers. This brings us to the conclusion that more companies will accept this model onwards to make their data safe and secure.
  • We have seen this before and we’ll see it again in coming years – the incorporation of AI with cloud computing. To meet their business needs, companies are now leveraging the power of Artificial Intelligence to run and effortlessly control the activities of their business. AI gives power to the organization to manage and automate their production and manufacturing processes without the interference of any human being. According to IBM, 65% of businesses feel that AI is necessary to handle their business operations and improve efficiency.
  • According to Statista, the total number of IoT-connected devices will amount to 30.9 billion units by 2025. This is huge. This brings us to another remarkable cloud computing trend – Cloud computing in the Internet of Things. IoT in cloud computing serves as a data source (from where data is produced) while cloud computing allows that data to store and process in its data centers. The combination of IoT with cloud computing gives us a model of devices connected intelligently that can manage store and process data automatically without the involvement of an outsider. For example, Alexa is a cloud-computing IoT device that can give you important information from the data stored in remote data centers in the cloud.

Conclusion

Digital transformation is on the rise. And in this era where technology is changing at an accelerated pace, it’s necessary to come up with advanced solutions to manage, store and process your data.

Cloud computing is now a part and parcel of successful organizations. But still, companies, who have reservations about the security of cloud computing, hesitate to transfer their data to a remote location.

For those hybrid model gives the perfect solution where you can get the advantage of both cloud services. For sensitive data, you can pick the private cloud while for the storage of regular and less sensitive data you can choose the private cloud. This way you can move your data and scale your compute resources as per the complexity of your business.

Not to mention, cloud computing has just started. And as the requirements and demands of businesses go complex, companies need powerful systems that not only store their data but also offer advanced processing capabilities. With new advancements in IoT technology and Artificial Intelligence, more businesses will likely adopt cloud computing for the years to come.

That’s all for today. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading this article. If you are unsure or have any questions about cloud computing, feel free to ask me in the section below. I’d love to help you the best way I can. Thank you for reading this article.

Python Syntax Errors

Welcome to chapter 8 of our python tutorial. In the previous chapter, we learned about Python numbers and how to use them in expressions. Throughout this chapter, you'll look at frequent examples of incorrect Python syntax and learn how to fix them.

At the end of this tutorial, you will:

  • Distinguish incorrect syntax in Python
  • Get familiar with SyntaxError tracebacks
  • Fix improper syntax or avoid it altogether

In Python, what is an invalid syntax?

Before transforming your Python code to Python byte code, the interpreter parses it. The parsing stage is where the interpreter searches for any instances of improper syntax in the program. Using the wrong syntax in your Python code will lead the interpreter to be unable to decipher it. The interpreter will try to show you exactly where the issue occurred.

Learning Python and encountering a SyntaxError can be a frustrating experience. If you're having trouble figuring out where the grammatical errors are, Python can provide you with a traceback that can be helpful. It's not uncommon for the resulting code to be nothing short of spectacular.

Please keep in mind that even if your code is syntactically valid, you may encounter other issues.

In Python, unlike other exceptions, improper syntax cannot be tolerated. Even if a try and except block was used to enclose code with incorrect grammar, the interpreter would still throw a SyntaxError.

Traceback SyntaxError

When an erroneous syntax in Python code is encountered by the interpreter, SyntaxError is thrown, and a traceback is supplied with some important information to aid in tracking the issue. Here's a Python script using the wrong syntax:

Line 4 of the dictionary literal contains a syntax error. There is no comma after 'Jim' in the second entry. Running this code in its current form would result in the following error message:

According to the traceback message, the fault does not line 4, but line 5. The Python interpreter highlights any errors in the syntax. However, it can only accurately pinpoint the moment when a problem was first discovered. If you receive a SyntaxError traceback and the code it refers to appears to be correct, works backward until you figure out what is wrong in your code.

In the example above, depending on what comes after it, it is not an issue to leave out the comma. A missing comma following the name of the person in line 5 ('michael') is not an issue. The interpreter, on the other hand, can only point you in the direction of the first thing it couldn't understand.

A SyntaxError traceback contains a few features that can assist you to figure out where your code has the incorrect syntax:

  • The name of the file containing the invalid syntax.
  • A description of the error, including the line number and exact location in the code that caused it.
  • Caret () on the line below the repeated code shows the problematic position.
  • The error message appears after the exception type SyntaxError, which may provide useful information for solving the problem.

There was a caret in the dictionary key at the end of Michael's closing quotation in file name theofficefacts.py, line number 5. The SyntaxError traceback may not be the root cause of the problem, but it will be the first time the interpreter fails to understand the syntax.

Python also throws two additional exceptions. They're similar to SyntaxError, but they're called something else:

  • IndentationError
  • TabError

Both of these exceptions derive from the class named SyntaxError, although they only apply in special cases involving indentation. When your code's indentation levels aren't aligned, an IndentationError is thrown. When tabs and spaces are used together in the same file, a TabError is thrown. A detailed discussion of these exclusions will be provided in the next section.

Which are the common syntax errors?

When you first run into a SyntaxError, it's a good idea to look into what went wrong and how you may correct the Python code's syntax. Some of the most common causes and fixes for SyntaxErrors are covered in the following sections.

Misuse of Assignment Operator (=)

In Python, there are several situations where you won't be able to assign values to objects. Assigning to literals and calling functions are two instances. You can see a few examples of this in the code block below, along with the SyntaxError tracebacks that result:

In the first example, the value 5 is assigned to the len() method. In this case, the SyntaxError warning is really valuable. It notifies you that you can't give a function call a value.

In the third and second examples, literals are assigned a string and an integer, respectively. For other literal values, the same rule applies. According to the traceback messages, the issue appears to be caused by trying to set the value of a literal to a specific value.

Take notice that the traceback fault isn't indicated in the previous samples by caret () and repeated code line. You'll notice a different error and traceback depending on whether REPL is being used or running the code from a file. As you've seen in earlier examples, an error caret would indicate where the problem would be in the file if the code was contained therein.

Using a function or assigning a literal value is extremely unlikely. This can be caused by removing one equal symbol (=) from the expression, which transforms the assignment into a comparison. A comparison like the one that follows might be useful:

A Boolean expression may be the cause of Python's warning that you're assigning a value to a variable that cannot be assigned to. While assigning an object's value (which you'll learn about in the next section), you may encounter this same problem.

Misuse of Python Keywords, Spelling Errors, and Omissions

When using Python, you'll want to stick to terms that have a specific meaning. Identifiers, variables, and function names cannot contain any of the words listed below. The only environment in which they can be utilized is within Python.

There are three typical ways that you might improperly utilize keywords:

  • Spelling error of a keyword
  • Omission of a keyword
  • Use of keywords incorrectly

If you misspell a term in your Python code, then you’ll get a SyntaxError. For instance, this happens when you spell the keyword "for" wrong:

There is a notification that reads "SyntaxError: incorrect syntax," but it doesn't provide much assistance. Using the traceback, you can go back to the point where Python first discovered an issue. To fix this problem, check your Python code to make certain that all of its keywords are spelled correctly.

Another typical issue with keywords is when you overlook them altogether:

Because of this, traceback does its best to direct you to where you should be looking. You'll see that the for-loop syntax lacks the in keyword when you step back from the caret.

You could potentially make a mistake with a Python keyword that is protected. The use of keywords is restricted to specific contexts. The incorrect syntax will result if you use them incorrectly.

'Continue' or 'break,' for example, are frequently used outside of a loop. When you're working on something and move logic out of a loop, it's easy to run into this problem:

Python does an excellent job of describing what's wrong in this scenario. The messages "'break' outside loop" and "'continue' not suitably in the loop" will guide you to the next step. Python would have the caret pointing to the incorrect sentence if the code was stored in a file instead.

Another possibility is to use a keyword to construct a function or to attach a Python keyword to a variable:

If you attempt to set the value of pass or create a new function called pass, you will receive a SyntaxError and an "invalid syntax" message.

Because the code appears to be fine from the outside, it may be tough to correct this type of poor syntax with Python programming. A SyntaxError may occur even if your code appears to be correct. In this case, look up the variable or function name in the Python version's keyword list.

Every time a new version of Python is released, the list of protected keywords grows. The term "await" has been introduced to the list of keywords in Python 3.7 and is now available as a variable or function name in Python 3.6. Any attempt to use await as an object name in Python 3.7.1 or later will result in an error.

Another difference between Python 2 and Python 3 is the print function:

A value can't be provided for print in Python 2, since it is a keyword. The built-in function can take values in Python 3, though.

Running the following command in any Python version will return a list of keywords.

In addition, the keyword offers the relevant keyword .iskeyword(). Using the one-liner below, you can rapidly verify the value of the pass variable.

Your identification will be immediately flagged as either keyword or not by this code.

Missed brackets, parentheses, and Quotes

A missing or mismatched terminating parenthesis, bracket, or quotation is frequently the root of erroneous syntax in Python code. As a result, it may be difficult to tell nested parentheses from the rest of the text, especially in long lines. It is possible to discover mismatched or missing quotations with the use of tracebacks provided by Python.

The traceback leads to the wrong code, which includes a t' after a single closing quotation. One of two adjustments can be made to correct this:

  • Using backslash to escape a single quote ('don\'t')
  • Using double quotes to surround the entire string ("don't").

The failure to terminate the string is also a common problem. Regardless of whether a string is double-quoted or single-quoted, the following is true:

In the traceback, the caret now points straight to the incorrect code. "EOL during scanning string literal" is explicit and helpful in identifying the issue in the SyntaxError notice. Before a string may be ended, an interpreter must reach the end of a line. To remedy this, add a quote at the end of the string that is identical to the one you used at the beginning. In this scenario, there would be a double quotation (").

Syntax errors can also be caused by missing quotes from statements within the f-string:

An error has occurred when it comes to f-string output. The double quotation marks at the end of the age dictionary reference have been left out. The resulting traceback is as follows:

The f-string contains the problem, and Python tells you about it. The error message "unterminated string" also clarifies the situation. The caret simply symbolizes the beginning of the f-string in this example.

This isn't as beneficial as when the caret points to the f-issue string's area, but it does assist narrow down where you need to search. Inside that f-string, there's an unterminated string. All you have to do now is figure out where. Remove the error by including all of the f-string quotes and brackets inside.

Except for removing parenthesis and brackets, the scenario is essentially the same. An error message will appear if the ending square bracket of a list is left out in Python. There are, however, several variations on this theme. The first option is to leave out the final bracket:

There will be an error message when you run the above code when there is a problem with the print() call.

Print(foo()) returns a list with three items: 1, 2, and 3 according to Python. It employs whitespace to logically order things, and because 3 and print(foo()) don't have a comma or bracket between them, Python combines them as the list's third entry.

After the final item in the list, you can use a trailing comma instead of a closing square bracket:

Now you receive a different traceback

Previously, 3 and print(foo()) were combined into one component, but now there is a comma between them. The print(foo()) command has been added to this list because Python has reached its conclusion of the file without a final encasement. An EOF error was returned by Python, which was expecting a different outcome.

The repeated line and caret aren't very useful in this scenario because Python was anticipating a closing bracket (]). Python has a hard time detecting missing brackets and parenthesis. Starting with the caret and working backwards is sometimes the only way to figure out what's missing or incorrect.

Conclusion

Congratulations! You've made it to the end of this tutorial. You've been exposed to a few reasons why you may face syntax problems when programming in Python, and so in the following chapter, we will look at a few additional reasons for syntax issues. With this, you can create Python code with fewer syntax problems. Let's meet in the next tutorial for more.

Comparator Operators in Ladder Logic Programming

Hi friends. Today we are going to go through one of the most commonly used topics in writing ladder logic programming which is using comparator operations. This includes the logical and mathematical comparison between variables to decide where the logic goes.

There are many comparator operations like equal (==), not equal (<>), less than (<), greater than (>), less than or equal (<=), greater than or equal (>=). All these comparator operations might be used in different logic scenarios while writing a ladder logic program. In this tutorial, we are going to go over each operator showing the input operators and output as well. In addition, we will practice some examples with the simulator to familiarize how to use them flexibly while developing ladder logic programs.

Input and output parameters of Comparator operations

Because they are used for comparing two the value of input variables, there will be two operators which are being compared. these input variables could be of any data type i.e. integer, real, boolean, character, string et cetera. And the output will be a boolean data type which denotes true or false, or “0” or “1”. As shown in Fig. 1 a typical comparator operator has two operands and one output which is called the result of logic (RLO).

Fig. 1: Comparator operation bock diagram

Table 1 lists examples for one of the comparisons between two variables of different data types and their output. In table 1, a typical example of “==” comparator operation between two strings considering the case sensitivity. The first column shows the values of the first operand and the second column shows the values of the second operand while the result of a logical operation (RLO) is represented in the third column. Now let us go over the station of each comparator operation for elaborating their operators, result, and give an example with simulation.

Table 1: example of comparator operation’s operands and RLO

Equal operator (==)

The equal operator is used to check if two operands are equal or not. The input operands’ datatype could be any of the possible data types in the language you are using. For example, Table 2 shows the parameters of the Equal operator in siemens S7. As you can notice, the input operand’ datatype can be any of the listed data types in the third column. One thing we need to highlight here is that datatype could be an array or structure of elements of the basic datatypes. For example, it could be an array of integers. In this case, the comparison will be conducted between every single element in the array of both operands. And if any of these elements have been found not match their equivalent in the other operand, the RLO will be false. Furthermore, the comparison not only does it apply to variables but also could be conducted between memory areas as shown in the third column. It can be used to compare input, output, marker, counter, timer memory data.

Table 2: the parameters of the Equal comparator operator

Example of equal comparator operation

Figure 2 depicts an example of an Equal comparator operation. .it compares literal constant with the variable of type integer saved in marker memory MW4 which is the location of a memory word.

Fig. 2: Example of Equal comparator operator

Figure 3 shows the simulation result of an example of an equal comparator operator. In the case of operands are not equal as in the example shown by fig. 3. The first operand is equal to 5 while the second operand is “0”. So the RLO shows false or “0”.

Fig. 3: simulation result of equal comparator operation when its operands are not equal

Figure 4 shows the simulation of an equal comparator when its operands are equal. The RLO is true or “1”. So the output coil is TRUE.

Fig. 4: simulation result of an equal operator when operands are equal

Not equal comparator operator

This operator is used to compare two operands. When they are not equal it produces positive RLO with High logic and when they are equal it returns false or “0”. Figure 5 shows the test result on the simulator of the NOT operator when the operands are equal. It returns RLO with “0” or false.

Fig. 5: simulation result of Not equal operator when operands are equal

On the other hand, fig. 6 shows the result of the simulation of the NOT operator when its operands are not equal. It gave RLO with logic Tru or “1”.

Fig. 6: simulation result of an equal operator when operands are equal

Greater-than “>” comparator operation

The greater than comparator operator is used for checking if operand 1 is greater than operand 2 or not. Figure 7 shows the rung of a ladder logic program that utilizes greater than comparator operation in which two operands of the integer data type are compared using the greater-than operator. The first operand is at memory location MW4 and the second operand is at memory location MW2. And the RLO represents the retuned result of the greater than comparator operation.

Fig. 7” ladder logic rung example of usage of greater-than comparator operation

Figure 8 shows the results of greater than comparator operation when operand one B is not greater than operand A. on the left side of the figure, it shows the case when both operands are equal and the right side shows the case when operand one is less than operand 2. In both cases, greater than operator sees its condition is not fulfilled so it returns false or “0” at the RLO and hence the output is false.

Fig. 8: simulation results of a greater-than operator when operand 1 is not greater than operand 2

Less-than “<” comparator operation

The less than comparator operator is used for checking if operand 1 is less than operand 2. Figure 9 shows a rung of a ladder logic program that utilizes less than comparator operation “A<B” in which two operands of the real data type are compared using the less-than operator. The first operand is at memory location MD8 and the second operand is at memory location MD12. And the RLO represents the retuned result of the greater than comparator operation. Also, it shows that, when oper1 is not less than oper 2, the result of logic output RLO is false and output is not activated.

Fig. 9: ladder logic rung example of usage of less-than comparator operation

Figure 10 shows the results of less than comparator operation when operand “oper1” is less than operand “oper2” the returned RLO is high or “1” and the output is activated. Now, one may question the case if the two operands are equal? Well that is is a good question and the case of equality between the two operands is considered false for both less than and greater than comparator operations.

Fig. 10: simulation results of less than operator when operand “oper1” is less-than operand “oper2”

Please see fig. 11 which shows the less comparator operation returns false when the two operands are equal. The next section will show the case of greater than or equal comparator operators “>=” and the less-than or equal comparator operator “<=”. In those cases, the equality between the two operands is included and the returned RLO is True or “1”.

Fig. 11: the less-than operator returns false when the two operands are equal.

 

Greater-than or equal comparator operator “>=”

Figure 12 shows a run in a ladder logic program that uses greater-than or equal “>=” operator. As you can see, the output shows true when the two operands are equal.

Fig. 12: greater-than or equal “>=” when two operands are equal

Less-than or equal comparator operator “<=”

Figure 12 shows a run in a ladder logic program that uses less than or equal “<=” operator. As you can see, the output shows true when the two operands are equal.

Fig. 12: the less-than or equal “<=” when two operands are equal

In-range comparator operator

Do all comparator operations take two operands? The answer is almost yes. However, there are very few operators that take only one operand. For example, the in-range operator compares the input operand with upper and lower limits to check if it is located within a specific range or not. Figure 13 shows a ladder logic rung uses that comparator operator to check operand oper1 of type real to see if it is in the defined range which is between 0 to 10.0. because the value of the operand oper1 is 11.5 which is out of the defined range. The RLO shows false or zero. Therefore, the output is deactivated.

Fig. 13: in-range comparator operation for the real data type variable

Figure 14 shows the RLO is true when the operand’s value is located between the defined limits of the in-range block. Also, there is out range comparison operator that is the opposite of the in-range operator about the logic.

Fig.14: in-range comparator operation returns true when operand located in the range

 

Larger example

In this section, we want to show you how these comparator operators can be combined to achieve a logical expression in ladder logic programming. let us imagine a scenario that we have a garage with a full capacity of 100 parking spots and we utilize a counter to count up cars get in and count down the cars that get out of the garage. Figure 15 shows a very simple logic of the validation and comparison to decide if the garage has room for a further car or it is full and no further car is allowed at present. Assume that the output of the counter is an integer data type variable that is stored in memory location %MW20. Now you can see the logic is straightforward. In the first step, the counter output is validated to make sure that it plays in a valid range which is from 0 to 100 which denotes empty to full capacity of the garage. It applies the limit function to the counter in case it is out of range to reset it to be within the designed range. Then program checks in the second step the value if it is less than the full capacity of the garage which is designed to be one hundred cars, it states true indicated with green lamp output meaning there is still room for cars to get in the garage; otherwise, it checks if it is greater than or equal of the maximum limit meaning there is no room for further cars to enter, it shows false meaning garage is full at the current time by activating a red lamp.

Fig. 15: garage status ladder logic example

Figure 16 shows the case when the garage still has room for further cars and the green lamp is activated for incoming cars.

Fig. 16: when the garage has room for further cars

Figure 17 shows the case when the garage is full and has no room for further cars. So the red lamp is activated for telling users no further empty spots available at the moment.

Fig. 17: when the garage is full

What’s next

As usual, I want to express my delight in your following up our tutorial, and let me take this chance to announce one of the most important and exciting tutorials which are about processing the analog inputs and how to scale the analog inputs. Did I tell you my friends that will be the next chapter? So be ready for enjoying processing analog inputs with practicing real-life situations in the industry.

Math Functions and Operations in Python

Hello friends, I hope you all are doing great. This is the 7th lesson of our Python tutorial. We were introduced to Python numbers in the previous chapter and learned how they are utilized with expressions, so we have a good understanding of math operations.

We'll go over a couple more arithmetic functions and complex numbers in this lesson. I will try my best to keep it simple. Let's get started!

Python round function

You can work with numbers in Python using a few built-in functions. Three of the most common will be discussed in this section:
  • Rounding to a specific number of decimal places can be done with round().
  • abs(), which returns a number's absolute value.
  • pow(), which raises a number to a certain power

As an added bonus, you'll discover how to test for the existence of an integer value using a floating-point number.

It's possible to round a number with round():

Round() acts strangely when the integer ends in .5.

2.5 is reduced to 2, and 3.5 is increased to 4. We'll dig a little deeper into this because most people assume that a decimal number ending in .5 is rounded up.

Python 3 uses a mechanism known as rounding ties to round numbers. The term "tie" refers to any number with a fifth digit. 1.37 is the only one that is not a tie.

One decimal place left of the last digit is all that is needed to break even integers down into their constituent parts. You round to the nearest whole number if the digit is even in this case. When an odd-numbered digit is entered, you round up. Hence, a reduction of 2.5 rounds to 2 and a rise of 3.5 rounds to 4.

When dealing with floating-point numbers, the IEEE advises against using anything but rounding ties because of their reduced influence on procedures involving a large number of values.

IEEE – what is it?

With over 350,000 members from over 150 countries, the IEEE is the biggest technical professional society in the world. An organization committed to the advancement of electrical and electronic engineering and computer science theory and practice has been established.

IEEE 754 is an IEEE-maintained standard for using floating-point integers on computers. It was first published in 1985, and is still widely used by hardware manufacturers today.

In order to round a value to the desired number of decimal places, a second argument to round() might be utilized.

3.142 and 2.72 is the result of rounding the numbers 3.14159 and 2.71828 to three decimal places, respectively.

There must be an integer as the second argument to round() Python raises a TypeError if it isn't.

In some cases, round() does not get the answer quite right:

Because it is exactly halfway between 2.67 and 2.68, the number 2.675 is a tie. The expected result of round(2.675, 2) would be 2.68, but Python produces 2.67 instead since it rounds to the nearest even value. Errors in floating-point representation are to blame, not a rounding problem ().

Floating-point numbers are irritating, but this isn't a problem specific to Python. C/C++, Java, and JavaScript are all affected by the same flaws in the IEEE floating-point standard.

Although floating-point numbers have a small amount of error, the outputs for round() are still useful in most cases.

How do we find the absolute value using abs()?

If n is positive, n`s absolute value is n, and if n is negative, it is -n. Examples include 3 and 5, which each have their own distinct absolute values.

In Python, abs() is used to get the number's absolute value.

A positive integer of the same type as its input is returned by the abs() function every time it is invoked. To put it another way, when it comes to absolute values of integers and floating points, they are both always positive integers.

How do we use pow() to raise a power?

The ** operator was previously used to raise a number to a power. If you want, you can use the pow() function instead.

There are two arguments to pow().

In order to raise 2 to its exponent 3 in the following example, we can utilize the pow() function.

It is possible to have a negative exponent in pow():

** and pow() are two different functions, so what's the difference between them?

With a third optional input, the pow() function takes the first number as a modulo, and then computes the second number's power. If (x ** y)%z is what you're looking for, then Pow(x, y, z) is the same thing. To illustrate, consider the following scenario:

Eight is the result of raising two to the power of three. 8 % 2 returns reminder 0 since 2 divides 8 by itself.

Check if a Float Is Integral

Functions like .lower(), .upper(), and .find() may be familiar to you. There are also ways for converting between integers and floating-point numbers, as well.

There is a handy number approach that isn't utilized very often .is_integer() method of floating-point numbers. In this case it returns True, otherwise it returns False.

.is_integer() can be used to verify user input. When placing an order for pizza, you'd need to make sure that the customer entered the correct amount of pizzas in the order form.

Using the built-in functions round(), abs(), and pow() does not require any additional imports. But these are just three of the many functions available in Python for manipulating numbers.

Check Your Understanding

Add two decimal places to an input field in order to display a user-specified number in two decimal places. You'll see something like this as the output.

Solution:

In order to get user input, use input():

A last blank space can be seen at the conclusion of the prompt string, for your convenience. This guarantees that the colon in the prompt is separated from the user's input when they begin typing.

It is necessary to first convert the input() value to float before rounding it:

If the user input string does not contain a numerical number, the above code thinks that it does.

The value can now be rounded to two decimal places using the round() method.

To round an integer, pass it as the first parameter to the round() function. You can choose how many decimal places you wish to round to in the second input field.

Using an f-string, enter the rounded number to print the result.

Even though round() is fantastic, if you're only interested in rounding numbers for display purposes, you'd be better off utilizing the methods mentioned below.

Formatting language.

Languages for document formatting determine how printed text and visuals should be organized. Text formatting notation, page description languages, and, most broadly, markup languages are all subclasses of markup languages that specify the intended purpose of a document.

How to print python numbers in style.

When a user requests a list of numbers, they must first enter those values into a string. To do this using f-strings, you can use curly brackets to surround the variable assigned to a number:

A simple formatting language is supported by those curly brackets, which can be employed to change the appearance of the final formatted string.

Instead of using curly brackets to format n to two decimal places, use n:.2f instead.

An extra colon (:) indicates that everything following it is part of a special formatting rule. As you can see, the.2f standard is used in this case.

A fixed-point number is displayed in Python using .2f since the .2 will truncate the result to the nearest tenth of a decimal place. If the number is less than two decimal places, there will still be two decimal places displayed.

The answer to n:.2f is 7.12 when n is 7.125. Python rounds to the nearest integer, just like round() does, when it comes to formatting integers in strings. If you substitute n = 7.126 for n = 7.125 in n:.2f, you get 7.13:

Replace .2 with .1 to get the decimal rounded up to one place:

Your chosen decimal place count is always displayed in the fixed-point number.

The , option allows you to use a comma for separating the integer portion of huge integers by thousands:

The , should be included before the .in in your formatting specification when rounding off or grouping by thousands.

Currency values can be displayed by using .2f.

% Is a useful option for displaying percentages.

Using the percent option at the conclusion of your formatting specification is mandatory, and you cannot use the f option with it. As an illustration, .1% shows a number with one decimal place exactly:

Check Your Understanding

Group thousands by commas when printing the number 150000. There should be two decimal places on all currency displays, and the dollar sign should always appear first.

Solution:

One step at a time, let's build up our F-string.

F-string 150000 without any formatting looks like the following:

Set yourself prepared to add the formatting specifiers by putting this in place first.

It is possible to display the value as float by using a colon (:) after both 150000 and letter f.

A precision of six decimal places is the default setting in Python. There should only be two decimal places in your currency, so you may just add . 2 between the : and the f:

Make sure the number is shown in its entirety by including a colon (:) after the number and before the period (.).

There should also be dollar signs ($) to indicate that the price is in US dollars.

Complex Numbers

Because it is so uncommon in other programming languages, Python has support for complex numbers right out of the box. Python's support for complex numbers, while uncommon outside of scientific computing and computer graphics, is a major plus for the language.

It is common knowledge that a complex number contains two components: a real component and an imaginary component.

When writing complex numbers in Python all that is required is to write the real component, the plus sign, and then the imaginary section with the letter j after them.

This is what we see when we look at the number n in Python's code:

Thus, the output is no longer misinterpreted as a mathematical expression when it is shown in this way.

The real and imagistic components of an imaginary number can be retrieved using the .real and .imag characteristics:

Even though the real and imaginary components were defined as integers, Python nevertheless delivers them as floats.

The conjugate of a complex number can be found using the .conjugate() method.

Find the complex number whose real part and imaginary portion are the same as the opposite-sign complex number's conjugate.

Unlike .conjugate(), the .real and .imag properties do not require parentheses following their names.

Instead of calculating a complex number, the .conjugate() method returns data about the number, while the .real and .imag methods just provide information.

In object-oriented programming, the distinction between methods and properties is critical.

Float and integer arithmetic operators, with the exception of the floor division operator (//), all function with complex numbers. For the sake of keeping things simple, complex arithmetic's mechanics are outside the scope of this article. Rather, consider the following arithmetic examples that demonstrate the use of complex numbers and operators:

The .conjugate() method for int and float objects is interesting, but not surprising, from the perspective of mathematics.

Conjugated numbers are returned when using .real and .conjugate(). However, while using .imag, it always returns 0. As long as the number is an integer, .real and .imag will return integers; if it is an unsigned int, they will return floats as long as it is an integer.

It's possible that you're wondering when you'll actually need to employ complex numbers. In Python, you may never have to deal with complex numbers unless you're doing data analysis or web development.

Science and computer graphics necessitate complex numbers for computation. Because of this, when dealing with complex numbers, Python's built-in support is handy.

Conclusion

Congratulations for making it to this point. During this tutorial, you've learnt how to work with numbers in Python. Python provides built-in support for complex numbers as well as the basic types of numbers, such as integers and floating-point numbers. Now that you've learned how to write Python code, you'll be able to conduct a wide range of calculations. You'll come across a wide range of issues in your programming career that you can address with this knowledge. Let’s meet in the next chapter as we talk more about exceptions in python.

Floating-Point and Integer Numbers in Python

Welcome to chapter 6 of our python course. Previously, we introduced integers and saw how they may be combined with strings and stored in variables. Today, we'll take a closer look at the python number types and how they're stored in variables to see what actions are possible.

What you'll learn in this tutorial is how to:

  • Add, subtract, multiply, and divide numbers.
  • Work with modular.
  • Use exponents.
  • Use expressions.
  • Use a predetermined number of decimal places to round numbers
  • Use strings to format and show numeric data.

With this in mind, let`s start.

How are integers created?

Integers can be created by simply inputting a number. For example, the tutorial variable is assigned the integer 6 in the following way:

>>>Tutorial = 6

In this case, the integer literal is 6 since it is written into the code exactly as it appears. Using int () and str (), you can turn a string containing an integer into a number (). Commas or decimal points are commonly used to separate digits in huge quantities written by hand. When compared to 1000000, the value 1,000,000 is easier for reading. Use underscores (_) instead of the commas (,) if you want to separate digits in an integer literal. Integer literals of one million can be expressed in one of the following ways:

There is no limit to the size of an integer, which may seem unexpected given that computers have a finite quantity of storage. Atom`s interactive window may be used to enter in the largest number you can think of and Python will be able to run it with no problem.

Floating-Point Numbers

Numbers having decimal places are called floating-point numbers. -1.75 is a floating-point number, just like 1.0. float is the name of the data type for floating-point numbers:

>>> type (1.0)

<class 'float'>

A floating-point literal or a text converted to a float using float () may be used to construct floats, much like integers.

It is possible to express a floating-point literal in any one of three ways. There are various ways to construct a float literal with a value of one million.

To produce integer literals, you can utilize the first two techniques. An E notation float literal is also used in the third technique.

Exponential notation - what is it?

Numerical values that might otherwise result in a lengthy string of digits in decimal form can be expressed using the E notation.

You can use E notation to write a floating-point literal by starting with an integer and ending with a value. The number before e is multiplied by 10 raised to power the value that is after e. This means that 1e6 is comparable to 1×106.

Displaying very big floating-point integers with E notation is also possible in Python.

It is true that floats have a maximum size, unlike integers. Your system's maximum floating-point number will vary, but a value like 2e400 should be much beyond the capability of the majority of PCs. 2e400 is equal to 2×104°°, which is a staggeringly large digit!

When you get close to maximum allowed float value, the specialized float inf is returned by Python.

The symbol "inf" represents infinity, and it simply indicates that the number you're attempting to compute exceeds the computer's maximum supported floating-point value. Inf is still a float type:

A negative floating-point value that exceeds your computer's minimum floating-point number is represented by the -inf keyword in Python.

If you're a coder, you're unlikely to see inf and -inf unless you deal with exceedingly high numbers.

Let's see whether we grasp numbers correctly.

Exercise 1: Create two variables, num1 and num2, by writing a python program. Integer literals 25000000 should be allocated to both num1 and num2, one written with underscores and the other without. Two distinct lines should be used to print num1 and num2.

Mathematical expressions and operators

In this session, Math operations such as multiplication, subtraction, addition and division will be covered. We'll also pick up a few coding standards for expressing mathematical ideas.

PEP 8 Recommendations

Anywhere you can, keep your whitespace free of trailing spaces. A backslash, space, and newline do not constitute a line continuation indication because they are both hidden. Pre-commit hooks in many projects including CPython itself reject it, and some editors do not save it.

Assigning (=), augmenting (+=, -=, etc.), comparing (==,!=, >, =, >=), Booleans, and comparison operators (is, isn't, is, isn't), as well as any other binary operators, should always be enclosed in a single space on either side (and, or, not).

If operators of the lowest priority are used, consider separating them with whitespace. Each binary operator should have precisely the same number of whitespaces on either side.

Addition

The + operator is used to perform addition operations:

>>> 1 + 2

"Operands" refers to the values placed before and after the plus sign (+). This example uses two integers, but the type of operands does not have to be the same.

Adding an int to a float is as simple as this:

The sum of 1.0 and 2 is a float, as shown is 3.0. When a float is multiplied by another float, the output is always another float. It is always an int when two integers are added together.

PEP 8 proposes using a space to separate the operands of an operator.

Despite the fact that Python is capable of evaluating 1+1, many programmers prefer the more readable 1+1. All of the operators in this section should follow this general rule of thumb.

Subtraction

To perform subtraction, you need to use the - operator between the integers.

An int is always produced when two integers are subtracted. The outcome is always a float when one of the operands is a float.

To express negative values, the - operator can be used as follows:

>>> -3

Output: -3

Even though it may appear to be strange, subtracting a negative from another number is possible.

The first of the four instances are the most in line with PEP 8. It's possible to make it extra clear that the second - is altering 3 by placing parenthesis around it.

In order to make your code clearer, it is recommended that you utilize parenthesis. Despite the fact that computers are able to run code, humans are only able to read it. Your code should be as readable and understandable as possible.

Multiplication

Use the * operator to multiply two numbers:

There are no exceptions to this rule when it comes to multiplication. When you multiply two integers, you get an int, and when you multiply a float by a number, you get a float.

Division

When two numbers are to be divided, the / operator is used:

The / operator always returns a float, unlike addition, subtraction, and multiplication, which yield integers. You may use int () to ensure that the result of dividing two numbers is an integer:

It is important to note that the int () function discards any fractional parts of the number

The floating-point number 2.5 is obtained by dividing 5.0 by 2, while the integer 2 is obtained by subtracting .5 from the result of int (2.5).

Floor Division operator

The operator (//), often known as the floor division operator, can be used instead of the cumbersome int (5.0 / 2):

First, the / operator splits the numbers on each side of it, and then rounds down to an integer. When one of the values is negative, you may not get the expected result.

For instance, -3 / 2 produces -2. The first step is to divide -3 by 2 to get -1.5. Then -2 is rounded to the nearest -2. -1.5. 3 / 2 returns 1, on the other hand, since both values are positive.

A float number is returned if one operand is a float value, as seen in the preceding example. And that's why 9// 3, and 5.0// 2, respectively, return the integers 3 and 2.0, respectively.

When you divide a number by 0, the following happens:

If Python encounters a ZeroDivisionError, it warns you that you've just attempted to violate a universal law.

Exponents

When you use the ** operator, you can multiply an integer by a power.

Integers are not required to be used as exponents. Floats are another option:

Raising a number to power 0.5 implies taking the square root of that number. The square root of nine is a float, thus even though nine`s data type is an int, Python generates a float 3.0. If both operands of an expression are integers, the ** operator returns an integer and if one of the operands is floating-point number it returns a float.

It's also possible to raise numbers to negative powers like shown below:

If you divide a number raised to a positive power by 1, then you have raised the number to the negative power. As a result, 2 ** -1 equals 1 / (2 ** 1), which is equal to 1 / 2 or 0.5. It's easy to see how 2 ** -2 may be represented as 1 / (2 ** 2), 1 / 4 or 0.25.

Using the Modulus Operator

5% of 3 is 2, so 3 divides 5 once and gives a remainder of 2. Seven also divides 20 twice, leaving 6 as a remainder. In the previous example, 16 divided by 8 is 0, thus 16 % 8 equals 0. The outcome of dividing the value to the right of % by the number to the left is always 0.

Determining the divisibility of two numbers is a typical use of percent. Number n, for example, is only an odd number when n % 2 is zero. What do you suppose is returned by 1% 0? Let's give this a try.

When you divide one by zero, you get 1 which is the remainder of 1 % 0. Nevertheless, Python throws a ZeroDivisionError since it is impossible to divide 1 by 0.

An error like ZeroDivisionError has little impact on your project in interactive window of IDLE. Even if a prompt window will pop up, you can continue to write code in your editor until the error is fixed.

The execution of a script is halted if Python discovers an error while running it. The software crashes in other words.

When you use the percent operator with negative values, things get a little more complicated:

Python has a well-defined behavior that produces these outcomes, even if they appear surprising at first. To find an integer's residual after multiplying it by another number, Python utilizes the formula r = x- (y * (x / y)).

Arithmetic Expressions

Complex expressions can be created by combining operators in new and interesting ways. Python can calculate or evaluate an expression to yield a result made up of integers, operators, and parentheses.

An example of an arithmetic expression is shown below.

Evaluating expressions follows the same set of guidelines as performing standard arithmetic operations. These rules were presumably taught to you as the sequence of operations in school.

Among the operators that have equal precedence are these operators "*," "/," "%," and "%". Thus, 2*3 - 1 yields 5, rather than 4, when divided by 3. Because the * operator takes precedence over the - operator, 2*3 is evaluated first.

In the above example, you may have noticed that the requirement requiring a space before and after each operator was not followed. Whitespace in complex expressions is addressed in PEP 8:

If the operators with the lowest priority are being used, then whitespace should be added around them. Using a single space and the equal number of whitespaces on both sides of a binary operator is perfectly acceptable.

Even if parenthesis isn’t essential, it's always good to include them to indicate the order in which steps should be taken.

Conclusion

In this lesson, you've learned how to use Python's numbers with expressions. In the next chapter, you'll learn how to employ math functions and number techniques and learn how to avoid typical mistakes that might lead to program failures.

How to use Variables in Python?

Welcome back! This is the fifth lesson in our Python programming course. In the last chapter, we discussed how string data types are used in Python. In this tutorial, we’re going to discuss variables in python and the rules for naming them in Python. In addition, you'll learn the fundamentals of working with numbers and strings.

What are variables?

All programming languages use variables as a fundamental building block of their language. It is the allocation of memory that is dedicated to data storage and manipulation. Variables are program elements that keep track of data. The following is an example of a variable.

x = 100

It's called x in the diagram below, and it has a value of 100 in it. In this case, the variable name is x, and the data it contains is the number.

For a variable, its data type is just the type of data it contains.

Data types - what are they?

If a variable has a certain data type, it can be used with any mathematical, relational, or logical operation without resulting in an error; this is known as the data type in programming. There are many different types of data, such as strings and integers, that are used to categorize different kinds of information.

How do computers store Python variables?

As a Python programmer, we don't have to do anything to free up space. Garbage collection handles this.

There are two types of memory:

Stack memory

Stack memory is used to hold all functions and their calling references. The lifo rule governs how a stack operates. Continuous blocks make up the stack memory. When a function is called, the variables it returns are kept in the program's call stack, where they can be freed upon function completion and the program's exit successfully.

Heap memory

Heap memory refers to the memory allocated at run time when each instruction is performed. A heap is used to store global variables, which can be shared by all functions in the program, rather than the local variables defined within a function. Here, x = 23 is an example.

Number types in Python

Integers, floats, and complex numbers are all available as numeric types in Python. In this tutorial, we'll learn about integers because we'll be using them to show how variables work.

For simplicity's sake, an integer is a number that does not include a decimal point or fraction. They might be both positive and negative at the same time. For example, the numbers 1, 2, 3, 500, and 10000000.

The int class contains all integer variables. The class name can be found using the type () method, as illustrated in the example below.

Python's Rules for Variable Naming

  • When naming a variable, it should begin with a letter or an underscore (_). For example, Age, _age, and Age.
  • There are no special characters allowed in the variable name, except for the underscore (_). There are several examples of this: age_, _age
  • Variables are case-sensitive. Therefore, age and Age are two different things.
  • However, the variable name can have numbers at the end, but not at the start. Age1 is a good illustration of this.
  • Python keywords should not be used in the name of a variable. Reserved words are another term for keywords. True, False, None, and Def.

Techniques for naming a variable with numerous words.

  • Camel Case: As a visual aid, the second and following words are capitalized. For example, pythonTutorial
  • Pascal Case: Similar to Camel Case, except that the initial letter is capitalized instead of being lowercase. For example, PythonTutorial
  • Snake Case: Underscores divide each word. For example, python_tutorial

Variable Assignment

A variable refers to an item's specific name. Instead of having to declare or specify a variable like in other programming languages, Python simply uses the equals (=) sign to create a variable and assign a value.

As stated, "n is allocated the value of 300" in the example above. You can then use n in a statement or expression, and its actual value will be substituted for n.

Just like with a literal value, variables can be shown directly from the interpreter prompt in a REPL session, without the usage of print ().

In the future, if you use n again and alter its value, the new value will be used:

Chained assignment in Python allows the same value to be assigned to many variables at the same time:

The above-chained assignment gives the variables a, b, and c the value 300 at once.

Python's Variable Types

Python has two types of variables: global variables and local variables. To utilize the variable in other parts of your program or module, you need to declare it as a global one. It is common practice in Python to use local variables when creating new variables.

Using the following program, you can see how Python variables function by comparing the local and global variables.

  1. Using Python, let's create a global variable called "f" and assign it the value 101, which is printed in the output.
  2. f is a new local scoped variable declared by function f. When this variable is set to its default value, "I'm studying Python." is printed as an output. This Python declared variable is distinct from the global variable "f" specified before.
  3. A function call's local variable f is disposed of once the execution has completed. At line 12, the global variable f=101 is displayed when printing the value of "f" once more.

You can utilize a global variable in a function in Python if you include the global keyword in the variable definition.

  1. The "f" variable is global in scope and has been assigned a value of 101, which is printed in the output of the code.
  2. The variable f is declared to exist by using the keyword global. That which was previously defined as a globally applicable variable will be used here. When we print the value, it comes out to 101.
  3. Inside the function, we modified the value of "f." The new value of the variable "f" remains even after the function call has ended. Line 12 prints the value "changing global variable" when value of "f." is printed.

Variables are statically typed in many programming languages. A variable's data type is specified when it is created, and any value that is assigned to it must always be of the same type.

However, Python variables are exempt from this rule. It is possible in Python to give a variable a value of one type and then change it to another type later on:

In reality, what happens when you assign a value to a variable?

This is an important subject in many programming languages, but the answer in Python is a little different.

Since Python is a highly object-oriented language, every piece of data in a program is an object of some type or class. This will be brought up again and again in the course of these tutorials.

References to objects

Take a look at the following coding:

Translators are instructed to perform the following actions when provided with a statement print (300).

  • Creating and supplying the value 300 to an integer object
  • The console will show it.

As you can see, the built-in type () function creates an integer object.

An object can be referenced by a Python variable's symbolic name, which serves as a pointer or reference. After assigning a variable name to an object, you can use that name to refer to the object. However, the object itself still contains the data. For instance,

An integer object with the value of 300 is created and the variable n is assigned as an identifier.

n is a pointer to an integer object, and the following code confirms that:

Then consider the following assertion:

What happens if it is executed? A new object is not created. Since n points to the same item, m points to a new symbolic name or reference.

Next, you may try something like this:

Python now constructs a new integer object named m, which has a value of 400.

Finally, let's consider that the following statement is executed:

As a result, Python generates a string object named "foo" and uses that as a pointer in n.

The integer object 300 is no longer mentioned anywhere. There is no way to get in touch with it.

The lifespan of an item will be mentioned at various points in this series of tutorials. When an item is first created, at least one reference to it is made, which marks the beginning of its life. A reference to an object can be added or destroyed at any moment during its lifetime, as you saw in the example above. As long as there is at least one reference to the thing, it lives on.

Objects are no longer accessible when the number of references to them reaches zero. Its time had come to an end at that moment. The allocated RAM allocated to Python will eventually be reclaimed so that it can be utilized for something else. Garbage collection, as it's called in computer jargon, is a very simple way to manage your own memory.

Object identity

Every Python object is assigned a unique identifier number when it is created. No two objects will ever share an identifier, even if their lives overlap for a period of time. It is not possible to utilize the same identifier for an object after its reference count reaches zero and it is garbage collected.

A Python object's id can be obtained using the id () function, which is part of the standard library. Id () can be used to verify that two variables are actually pointing at one another:

Even after an assignment such as this, which results in the same number being returned for id(n), it is clear that these two numbers point to the same thing. As soon as m is reassigned to the value 400, they no longer point to the same item, but rather to different things, take into account the following:

M and n are both 30-valued integers in this example. The id(m) and id(n) are identical in this example, While running the program, the interpreter makes use of previously created objects for numbers in the [-5, 256] range. As a result, if you assign different integer values in this range to different variables, they will all refer to the same thing.

Delete a variable

Python variables can also be deleted by use of function del "variable name". Python's error "variable name is not defined" indicates that you've erased the variable in the following example of the language's delete variable function.

Variable type casting

Test the concatenation of several data types such as string and integer. The number "99" will be added to the word "Guru," for example, A Type Error will arise if the number is not expressed as a string when declaring variables in Python. This differs from Java, which does not require the number to be declared as a string.

You will obtain an undefined result if you run the following code.

a="Guru"

b = 99

print a+b

Use print(a+str(b)) to concatenate both a and b into a string.

what is type casting?

This is the process of changing one data type to another. Data type conversion is necessary in some scenarios. For instance, you may want to combine two numbers where one of the variables' existing values is an integer and the other is a string. Python typecasting is required before addition, as it must transform a string's data type to an integer.

Types of conversions in type casting

  • Explicit conversion

Type casting in Python can be done using a variety of functions.

  1. The INT () function is used to specify integer literals. A string literal is converted to an integer value.
  2. Use STR () to convert an integer to a string ().
  • Implicit conversion

Data types in Python are implicitly converted by the Python interpreter, which means that the user is not required to intervene in the process. See the examples below for a better understanding of the subject.

Conclusion

Congratulations! Your perseverance has paid off. The focus of this session was on Python variables, object references, and identity, as well as the naming conventions for Python identifiers and a brief discussion of integers. Let’s meet in our next tutorial as we discuss about Python data types and how they're put to use.

Syed Zain Nasir

I am Syed Zain Nasir, the founder of <a href=https://www.TheEngineeringProjects.com/>The Engineering Projects</a> (TEP). I am a programmer since 2009 before that I just search things, make small projects and now I am sharing my knowledge through this platform.I also work as a freelancer and did many projects related to programming and electrical circuitry. <a href=https://plus.google.com/+SyedZainNasir/>My Google Profile+</a>

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Syed Zain Nasir