Python Statements
Updated on: September 1, 2021 | 9 Comments
In this tutorial, you will learn Python statements. Also,
you will learn simple statements and compound statements.
Table of contents
Multi-Line Statements
Python Compound Statements
Simple Statements
Expression statements
The pass statement
The del statement
The return statement
The import statement
The continue and break statement
What is a statement in Python?
A statement is an instruction that a Python interpreter can
execute. So, in simple words, we can say anything written
in Python is a statement.
Python statement ends with the token NEWLINE character. It
means each line in a Python script is a statement.
For example, a = 10 is an assignment statement. where a is
a variable name and 10 is its value. There are other kinds
of statements such
as if statement, for statement, while statement, etc., we will
learn them in the following lessons.
There are mainly four types of statements in Python, print
statements, Assignment statements, Conditional
statements, Looping statements.
The print and assignment statements are commonly used. The
result of a print statement is a value. Assignment
statements don’t produce a result it just assigns a value
to the operand on its left side.
A Python script usually contains a sequence of statements.
If there is more than one statement, the result appears
only one time when all statements execute.
Example
# statement 1
print('Hello')
# statement 2
x = 20
# statement 3
print(x)
Run
Output
Hello
20
As you can see, we have used three statements in our
program. Also, we have added the comments in our code. In
Python, we use the hash (#) symbol to start writing a
comment. In Python, comments describe what code is doing so
other people can understand it.
We can add multiple statements on a single line separated
by semicolons, as follows:
# two statements in a single
l = 10; b = 5
# statement 3
print('Area of rectangle:', l * b)
# Output Area of rectangle: 50
Run
Multi-Line Statements
Python statement ends with the token NEWLINE character. But
we can extend the statement over multiple lines using line
continuation character (\). This is known as an explicit
continuation.
Example
addition = 10 + 20 + \
30 + 40 + \
50 + 60 + 70
print(addition)
# Output: 280
Run
Implicit continuation:
We can use parentheses () to write a multi-line statement.
We can add a line continuation statement inside it.
Whatever we add inside a parentheses () will treat as a
single statement even it is placed on multiple lines.
Example:
addition = (10 + 20 +
30 + 40 +
50 + 60 + 70)
print(addition)
# Output: 280
Run
As you see, we have removed the the line continuation
character (\) if we are using the parentheses ().
We can use square brackets [] to create a list. Then, if
required, we can place each list item on a single line for
better readability.
Same as square brackets, we can use the curly { } to create
a dictionary with every key-value pair on a new line for
better readability.
Example:
# list of strings
names = ['Emma',
'Kelly',
'Jessa']
print(names)
# dictionary name as a key and mark as a value
# string:int
students = {'Emma': 70,
'Kelly': 65,
'Jessa': 75}
print(students)
Run
Output:
['Emma', 'Kelly', 'Jessa']
{'Emma': 70, 'Kelly': 65, 'Jessa': 75}
Python Compound Statements
Compound statements contain (groups of) other statements;
they affect or control the execution of those other
statements in some way.
The compound statement includes the conditional and loop
statement.
if statement: It is a control flow statement that will
execute statements under it if the condition is true.
Also kown as a conditional statement.
whilestatements: The while loop statement repeatedly
executes a code block while a particular condition is
true. Also known as a looping statement.
forstatement: Using for loop statement, we can iterate
any sequence or iterable variable. The sequence can be
string, list, dictionary, set, or tuple. Also known as a
looping statement.
try statement: specifies exception handlers.
withstatement: Used to cleanup code for a group of
statements, while the with statement allows the
execution of initialization and finalization code around
a block of code.
Simple Statements
Apart from the declaration and calculation statements,
Python has various simple statements for a specific
purpose. Let’s see them one by one.
If you are an absolute beginner, you can move to the other
beginner tutorials and then come back to this section.
Expression statements
Expression statements are used to compute and write a
value. An expression statement evaluates the expression
list and calculates the value.
To understand this, you need to understand an expression is
in Python.
An expression is a combination of values, variables,
and operators. A single value all by itself is considered
an expression. Following are all legal expressions
(assuming that the variable x has been assigned a value):
5
x
x + 20
If your type the expression in an interactive python shell,
you will get the result.
So here x + 20 is the expression statement which computes
the final value if we assume variable x has been assigned a
value (10). So final value of the expression will become
30.
But in a script, an expression all by itself doesn’t do
anything! So we mostly assign an expression to a variable,
which becomes a statement for an interpreter to execute.
Example:
x = 5
# right hand side of = is a expression statement
# x = x + 10 is a complete statement
x = x + 10
Run
The pass statement
passis a null operation. Nothing happens when it executes.
It is useful as a placeholder when a statement is required
syntactically, but no code needs to be executed.
For example, you created a function for future releases, so
you don’t want to write a code now. In such cases, we can
use a pass statement.
Example:
# create a function
def fun1(arg):
pass # a function that does nothing (yet)
Run
The del statement
The Python del statement is used to delete
objects/variables.
Syntax:
del target_list
The target_list contains the variable to delete separated by a
comma. Once the variable is deleted, we can’t access it.
Example:
x = 10
y = 30
print(x, y)
# delete x and y
del x, y
# try to access it
print(x, y)
Run
Output:
10 30
NameError: name 'x' is not defined
The return statement
We create a function in Python to perform a specific task.
The function can return a value that is nothing but an
output of function execution.
Using a return statement, we can return a value from a
function when called.
Example:
# Define a function
# function acceptts two numbers and return their sum
def addition(num1, num2):
return num1 + num2 # return the sum of two numbers
# result is the return value
result = addition(10, 20)
print(result)
Run
Output:
30
The import statement
The import statement is used to import modules. We can also
import individual classes from a module.
Python has a huge list of built-in modules which we can use
in our code. For example, we can use the built-in
module DateTime to work with date and time.
Example: Import datetime module
import datetime
# get current datetime
now = datetime.datetime.now()
print(now)
Run
Output:
2021-08-30 18:30:33.103945
