Python Function Tutorial – Part II

See Part I of this installment to learn more about Python functions.

There are three types of Python functions:

• Built-in Python functions such as print to print on the standard output device, type to check data type of an object, etc. These are the functions that Python provides to accomplish common tasks.
• User-Defined Python functions: As the name suggests these are custom functions to help/resolve/achieve a particular task.
• Anonymous Python functions, also known as lambda functions are custom-made without having any name identifier.

Built-in Python functions

Built-in functions are the ones provided by Python. We will go through a few of them now:

• type(object) is used to check the data type of an object.
• float([value]) returns a floating point number constructed from a number or string value.
• int([value]) returns an integer object constructed from a float or string value, or return 0 if no arguments are given.
• round(number[, ndigits]) is used to round a float number up to digits specified by ndigits.
• abs(value) returns the absolute value of a value provided as an argument.
• format(value[, format_spec]) converts a value to a ‘formatted’ representation, as controlled by format_spec.
• str([object]) returns a string version of object. If the object is not provided, returns the empty string.
• bool([value]) return a Boolean value, i.e. one of True or False. value is converted using the standard truth testing procedure[1]. If the value is false or omitted, this returns False; otherwise, it returns True.
• dir([object]) returns the list of names in the current local scope when an argument is not provided. With an argument, it attempts to return a list of valid attributes for that object.
• len(object) returns the length (the number of items) of an object. The argument may be a sequence (such as a string, bytes, tuple, list, or range) or a collection (such as a dictionary, set, or frozen set).

It is worth noting that almost all built-in Python functions take one or more arguments, perform the specific operation on it and return the output. We will keep learning about many more built-in Python functions as we progress through our Python learning journey. More information about various built-in functions can be obtained from Python official documentation

In the next installment, the author will discuss the user defined Python functions.

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