Python Literals

Learn Python Programming Language Python Literals

In this lesson, You will learn about Python literal and its types with examples to better understand the topic.

Table of Contents

Literals in Python

A literal is a variable or constant that gives raw data. There are different kinds of literal in Python. They are:

Numeric Literals
String Literals
Boolean Literals
Special Literals

Numeric Literals

Numeric Literals are immutable (unchangeable). Numeric literals can be of three types: Integer, Float, and Complex.

Let’s see an example of how to use Numeric literals in Python.

Example

binaryLiteral = 0b1010 #Binary Literals
decimalLiteral = 100 #Decimal Literal
octalLiteral = 0o310 #Octal Literal
hexadecimalLiteral = 0x12c #Hexadecimal Literal

#Float Literal
floatLiteral = 10.5

#Complex Literal
complexLiteral = 3.14j

print(binaryLiteral, decimalLiteral, octalLiteral, hexadecimalLiteral)
print(floatLiteral)
print(complexLiteral, complexLiteral.imag, complexLiteral.real)

Output

10 100 200 300
10.5
3.14j 3.14 0.0

In the code above, we put literal numbers into the different variables. Here, and is literal binary, decimalLiteral is literal decimal, octalLiteral is literal octal, and hexadecimalLiteral is literal hexadecimal.
10.5 Literal with floating-point.
We gave the variable complexLiteral the value 3.14j, which is a complex literal. Then, we use imaginary literal (complexLiteral.imag) and real literal (complexLiteral .real) to make parts of complex numbers that are both real and imaginary.
All literals are turned into their corresponding decimal values when we print the variables.

String Literals

The name String Literals refers to a group of characters inside quotes. You can use single, double, or triple quotes for a string literal.

Conversely, a character literal is a single character inside single or double quotes.

Example

stringLiteral = "Python Literal"
charLiteral = "C"
multilinestrLiteral = """Multiline string"""
unicodeLiteral = u"\u00dcnic\u00f6de"
rawstrLiteral = r"raw \n string"
print(stringLiteral)
print(charLiteral)
print(multilinestrLiteral)
print(unicodeLiteral)
print(rawstrLiteral)

Output

Python Literal
C
Multiline string
Ünicöde
raw \n string
>

stringLiteral is a string literal in the program above, and charLiteral is a character literal.
The value “”” that is given to the multilinestrLiteral is a literal multi-line string.
The string “u00dcnicu00f6de” is a Unicode literal, which means it can contain characters other than those in the English alphabet. In this case, u00dc stands for the letter Ü, and u00f6 stand for the letter o.
“raw string” is a literal string.

Boolean Literals

In Python, a Boolean literal can have any of these two values:

True
False

Let’s see an example of how to employ a Boolean literal in Python.

Example

boolx = (1 == True)
booly = (1 == False)
boola = True + 4
boolb = False + 10
print("boolx is", boolx)
print("booly is", booly)
print("boola:", boola)
print("boolb:", boolb)

Output

boolx is True
booly is False
boola: 5
boolb: 10

Special Literals

Python has one special literal, which is the word “none.” It tells us that the field has not yet been made.

Example

Color = "Favorite"
Red = None
def menu(x):
if x == Color:
print(Color)
else:
print(Red)
menu(Color)
menu(Red)

Output

Favorite
None

We set up a menu function in the program we just looked at. When the argument is set to Color inside the menu, it says Favourite. And when Red is the argument, it shows None.

This concludes the Python Literals lesson. In the next lesson, you will learn namespaces in Python and their usage.

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