Python Basics (Python 101)

Prerequisites:

Keyboard proficiency

Target Audience:

• This course is an appropriate introduction to students of any background looking to get started with Python
• System Administrators
• Network Administrators and Engineers
• DevOps Engineers
• Management, Directors, VPs

Course Objectives:

• Current Python3 Standard Library
• Popular 3rd party libraries
• Version control with git
• Git integration with popular SCM (GitHub)
• Parsing and building files
• Pull JSON from API queries
• Manipulate Excel and other popular formats with pandas data frames
• Building feature-rich charts and graphs
• Searching with Regular Expressions (regex)
• Best practice techniques

Course Outline:

Introduction to Python

• Installing Python 3.x
• Preparing to write Python
• Preparing to write a Python file (*.py) ‐ Text Editors
• Executing a Python file
• Python Enhancement Proposals (PEPs)
• Python Statements and Control Flow
• Python Interpreter
• Overview of the Standard Library

Version Controlling Code with Git

• Overview of Git
• Git commands
• Set up a GitHub account
• GitHub essentials
• README course requirements
• How to Set up a repo
• Issue a Pull request
• How to use ’Issues’ for peer review

Basics of Programming

• Functions and purpose of main()
• Objects
• Methods
• Built-in Functions
• Arguments
• Controlling standard out
• White spacing basic rules
• String Literal Escape Sequences
• Python Variables
• Naming Conventions & Rules
• Types as Objects
• Sequence Types
• List Iteration
• List Enumeration
• Sequence Assignments
• Mutable vs Immutable Objects
• Assignment Shorthand

Python Basic Variables and Data Types

• Numeric Types
• Operators and Precedence / Arithmetic Expressions
• Integers
• Floating points

String Types

• Generating Strings in Python
• Common String Methods
• Formatting String Output
• Booleans
• Printing and formatting strings
• Scripting with input()
• About raw_input()

Lists & Dictionaries & Tuples

• Lists
• Mixed Lists
• Common List Methods
• Other List Operations
• An overview on and construction of dictionaries
• Keys and Values
• Dictionary Methods
• Tuples
• Python Time Tuples
• Dictionaries vs Lists vs Tuples
• Translating JSON to Pythonic data

If, elif, else

• Relational Operators
• Logical operators
• Comparison Operations
• ’simple’ if Statement
• If else statements
• If elif
• Nested if statement

Looping with ’while’

• While usage
• Count controlled loop
• Event-controlled loop
• Continue
• Break

Looping with ’for’

• The for Loop
• For iteration examples
• Looping across data sets
• Looping across lists of lists
• Looping across lists of dictionaries

Understanding Iterators

• The range() Function
• Taking the range() of len()
• Iterable Objects
• The iter() Function
• Looping with dictionaries
• Looping with lists

Getting Data In and Out of Python

• Opening Files
• Working with Files
• Read data from files
• Controlling Output Location
• Intro to working with APIs
• What is a ’REST’ful API?
• APIs and JSON

Creating Python Functions

• Function Basics
• Defining Functions
• Function Polymorphism
• Argument Defaults
• Lambdas
• What is if name == ’main’
• Local Variables
• Variable Masking
• Preventing Variable Modifications
• Argument Matching Methods
• Basic List Comprehensions

Modules & Packages

• Pip and pip3
• Module Basics
• Packages
• Virtual environments
• Defined modules
• Import modules
• From import statements
• Some useful modules to know
• RESTful APIs and requests
• Dataframes with pandas
• Graphing with matplotlib

Python Scope

• Naming conventions
• Local scope
• Global scope
• Nested scope

Object Oriented Python

• About OOP
• The Class Statements
• Defining a class
• Class Inheritance
• Classes as Objects
• Using Dictionaries
• Understanding self
• Class fields and constructors
• Data structures
• Subclasses (Inheritance)
• Multiple Inheritance
• Static methods

(Optional) Regular Expression

• import re-library
• Writing regular expression
• Searching for data in files
• Using Regular Expression to search data sets
• Searching for data in Wireshark Traces (Python and *.pcaps)

Hands-On Labs

• Welcome to Alta3 Research Labs
• Using vim
• Introduction to VScode
• Python IDEs
• Revision Control with GitHub
• Python 101 – Certification Project (OPTIONAL)
• Installing Python
• Lecture – Python Basics
• Shebang
• Print
• Collecting user input()
• Lecture – Lists
• Working with Lists
• List Objects and Methods
• Lists of Lists
• Lecture – Dictionaries
• Python Dictionaries
• Getting dir(obj) help() and pydoc
• Lecture – Python Strings
• String Methods
• Copying Files and Folders
• Moving and Renaming Files and Folders
• Lecture – Conditionals
• Testing with if
• IPv4 Testing with if
• Writing your own if-logic script
• Using while, if, elif, else
• Troubleshooting while, if, elif, else
• Starting to Learn Loops
• Looping with for
• for loops and range()
• Lecture – Reading and Writing to Files
• Parsing Log Files
• Write to Files
• Read from Files
• Archive with zipfile
• Creating Functions
• pip and import
• Exploring Network Interfaces
• Defining Functions
• Scripting Commands with Python
• Error Handling – try except else finally
• Producing Graphs and Charts
• Walking the Directory Tree
• Excel and Intro to Pandas
• Lecture – Converting JSON to Python Data Types
• RESTful APIs and JSON
• requests library – Open APIs
• Searching with Regular Expressions
• Use RegEx to Search Text
• Best Practice and pylint
• Testing with pytest
• Packaging Python Projects
• Running Python Scripts with Crontab
• Creating objects in Python from ’Scratch’
• Class Inheritance
• Using Classes
• Argument Parsing
• Unpacking Arguments
• Automating SMTP and Extended SMTP
• XML Parsing with ElementTree
• Timestamping – import time datetime
• Glossary
• Challenge – list, and dictionaries
• Challenge – for loop