Every Punctuation in Python

• Backtick `: Doesn't do anything in Python.

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• Tilde ~: Bitwise Not operator.

x = 100
print(~x)
>> -101

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• Exclamation Mark !: Doesn't do anything on it's own. Combining it with = makes the not equality operator.

x = 4
if x != 5:
    print("x is not equal to 5")

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• Question Mark ?: Doesn't do anything in Python.

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• At Sign @: Its main usage is in decorators.

import time


def tictoc(func):
    def wrapper():
        start = time.time()
        func()
        end = time.time()
        print(f"{ func.__name__ } executed in { '{:.2f}'.format(end - start) } seconds")

    return wrapper


@tictoc
def do_something_1():
    print("Doing something 1")
    time.sleep(2)
    print("Done something 1")


@tictoc
def do_something_2():
    print("Doing something 2")
    time.sleep(3.5)
    print("Done something 2")


do_something_1()
do_something_2()

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• Hash #: It is primarily used for comments to annotate code.

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• Dollar Sign $: Doesn't do anything in Python.

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• Modulo %: This is the modulo operator, the remain of division. It's also used to format strings.

x = 98

print(x%2, x%3, x%5, sep=" ___ ")
>> 0 ___ 2 ___ 3

print("x = %s" % x)
>> x = 98

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• Caret ^: Bitwise Exclusive Or (XOR).

a = 0b1111000010
b = 0b0000111110

x = a ^ b

print(bin(a), bin(b), bin(x), sep=" ___ ")
print(a, b, x, sep=" ___ ")

>> 0b1111000010 ___ 0b111110 ___ 0b1111111100
>> 962 ___ 62 ___ 1020

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• Ampersand &: Bitwise And operator.

a = 0b00110011
b = 0b11110000

x = a & b

print(bin(x))

>> 0b110000

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• Asterisk *: The uses are:

  • Multiplication operator

  print(4 * 5)
  print(3 * "Hello ")
  
  >> 20
  >> Hello Hello Hello

  • Unpacking operator

  a, b, *others = (4, 5, 12, 4, 5, -2)
  print("a = %s, b = %s, others = %s" % (a, b, others))
  
  >> a = 4, b = 5, others = [12, 4, 5, -2]

  • Allow any number of positional arguments: as a tuple

  def say_hello(*args):
      print(args)
  
  
  say_hello("Choaib", 22, "ENSA")
  >> ('Choaib', 22, 'ENSA')

  • Allow any number of keyword arguments: as a dictionary

  def say_hi(**kwargs):
      print(kwargs)
  
  
  say_hi(name="Choaib", age=22, school="ENSA")
  >> {'name': 'Choaib', 'age': 22, 'school': 'ENSA')

  • Import everything from a module

  from module_name import *

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• Brackets ( ): Mainly used in functions, create tuples and packing.

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• Curly Brackets { }: Mainly used to create dictionaries or sets, and in f-strings.

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• Square Brackets [ ]: Mainly used to create lists, access dictionary and tuple items.

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• Plus Sign +: The plus operator.

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• Minus Sign -: The minus operator.

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• Underscore _: The only character that can be inside a variable name.

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• Equal Sign =: Assignment operator. It can be combined with other punctuations to create combined assignment operators like: +=, -=, *=, /=, %= and ==.

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• Slash /: Mainly used for true division / and floor division //.

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• Backslash \: Mainly used as an escape character. Used also to split a long line of code into multiple lines.

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• Pipe Sign |: Bitwise Or operator.

a = 0b01010101
b = 0b10101010

x = a | b

print(bin(x))

>> 0b11111111

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• Semicolon ;: Used to squeeze multiple lines of code into one.

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• Colon :: Used in control structures (if else, loops, ...), function definition, try except blocks.

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• Single/Double Quotes ' ": Mainly used with strings.

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• Less/More than < >: Comparison operators, they can be combined with = to create <= and >=. They are also used as a left/right shifts operators.

a = 0b110011

print(bin(a))
print(a)

# Left Shift === Multiplication by 2
print(bin(a << 1))
print(a << 1)

# Right Shift === Division by 2
print(bin(a >> 1))
print(a >> 1)

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• Comma ,: Used to separate the arguments/parameters for a function. It separates the elements in lists, dictionaries, sets and tuples.

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• Full Stop .: Used to access either the methods or the attributes of an object.