Python Tutorial - Operators

1. Python Arithmetic Operators
2. Python Comparison Operators
3. Python Logical Operators
4. Python Bitwise Operators
5. Python Assignment Operators
6. Python Special operators

In this section, Python operators will be discussed with the help of example codes.

Operators are the special symbols to perform specific tasks on operands (values or variables) for example when you write a+b, here + is an operator that operates on variables a and b and these variables are called operands.

The following are some of the types of Python operators:

Python Arithmetic Operators

Arithmetic operators perform arithmetic (mathematical) operations on variables such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc.

Consider the following table in which Python arithmetic operators are described along with examples:

Python Arithmetic Operators Example

In the following code, arithmetic operators are used on two operands:

a = 24
b = 7
print("a + b =", a + b)
print("a - b =", a - b)
print("a * b =", a * b)
print("a / b =", a / b)
print("a // b =", a // b)
print("a ** b =", a ** b)

a + b = 31
a - b = 17
a * b = 168
a / b = 3.4285714285714284
a // b = 3
a ** b = 4586471424

You can see here, division returned a floating point value but floor division returned whole number.

Python Comparison Operators

Comparison operators compares two or more values. The result obtained after applying comparison operators is either True or False based on the condition.

The following are the comparison operators in Python programming:

Python Comparison Operators Example

Consider the code below in which comparison operators are used:

a = 12
b = 24
print("a > b =", a > b)
print("a < b =", a < b)
print("a == b =", a == b)
print("a != b =", a != b)
print("a >= b =", a >= b)
print("a <= b =", a <= b)

a > b = False
a < b = True
a == b = False
a != b = True
a >= b = False
a <= b = True

Python Logical Operators

Logical operators in Python include and, or and not.

Python Logical Operators Example

Consider the following example in which logical operators are used:

a = False
b = True
print("a and b =", a and b)
print("a or b =", a or b)
print("not b =", not b)

a and b = False
a or b = True
not b = False

Python Bitwise Operators

Bitwise operators performs bit by bit operations. The operands are considered to be binary digits on which bitwise operations are performed.

Consider an example where we have a = 4 (100 in binary) and b = 5 (101 in binary):

Python Assignment Operators

Assignment operator = assigns values to variables. Assignment operator initializes a variable for example x = 1 is an assignment statement which assigns 1 to x.

In Python, there are compound assignment operators that are the combination of arithmetic operators and the assignment operator and sometimes a combination of bitwise and assignment operators.

For example, x += 2 is a compound assignment statement in which 2 is added to the actual value of variable x and the result is stored in variable x.

The following table demonstrates compound assignment statements:

Python Special operators

In Python programming, there are some operators that have a special meaning and are called special operators for example membership operator, identity operators, etc.

Python Identity Operators

In Python the operators is and is not are called identity operators. The identity operators are used to determine if two variables lie in the same part of memory. So two variables to be equal and two variables to be identical are two different statements.

Python Identity Operators Example

Consider the code below:

a = 3
b = 3
print(a is b)
print(a is not b)

True
False

In this example, variables a and b have same values and you can see that they are identical as well.

Python Membership Operators

In Python the operators in and not in are called membership operators. The membership operators are used to determine if variables lie in a sequence (list, tuple, string and dictionary) or not.

You can do dictionary membership operation for the key in dictionary but not for the value.

Python Membership Operators Example

Consider the code below:

a = "Python Programming"
print("y" in a)
print("b" not in a)
print("b" in a)

True
True
False

In this code, y is present in the sequence (string) so True is returned. Similarly, b is not present in a so again True is returned as not in is used. The False is returned as b is not in a and in operator is used.