Python Tutorial : Variable Data Types

Want to learn more? Take the full course at https://learn.datacamp.com/courses/intro-to-python-for-finance at your own pace. More than a video, you'll learn hands-on coding & quickly apply skills to your daily work. --- All variables in Python are typed - and I don't just mean on your keyboard! The type of a Python variable defines its properties and how it can be used. Here are four data types in Python. Strings are text enclosed in quotes. Integers are whole numbers without decimal points, like the number 40. Floats are real numbers with a decimal point. Finally, booleans in Python are logical values, either True or False. Note that unlike other programming languages such as C or C++, Python sets the data type of the variable based on the value that is assigned to it. The abbreviations for the data types we discussed are shown here. It is often important to know the data type of the variable you are dealing with. To do this, you can use the function type() followed by the variable inside parentheses. We will learn more about functions in a later chapter. For now, think of functions as commands that you use to obtain specific results. In this case, we used the type() function to determine the data type of a variable, and the print() function to print the result. As you can see here, the data type of pe_ratio is an integer. Let's take a closer look at the Boolean data type. The Boolean data type is often the result of a conditional test involving comparison or logical operators. In this example, a double equal sign tests whether two values are equal, and since they are equal, the result is True. If you check the type of the result, you will see that it is bool, short for boolean. As mentioned earlier, it is important to understand the data types of variables because depending on the data type of variables, you can manipulate them differently. Let's take a look at how strings and integers behave with the multiplication operator. Here we assign an inte