Statement in python

 

Python Statement

Python Statement

Instructions that a python interpreter can execute are all statement.

for example, a=1 is an assignment statement.

if statement, for statement, while statement, etc., are other kind of statements which will be discussed later.

---

Multi-line statement

In python, end of a statement is marked by a new character. But we can make a statement extend over multiple lines with the line continuation character (\).

For example

1 2 3

a = 1 + 2 + 3 + \     4 + 5 + 6 + \     7 + 8 + 9

this is explicit line continuation. In python, line continuation is implied inside parentheses( ), breackets [ ] and braces { }.

For instance, we can implement the above multi-line statement as

1 2 3

a = (1 + 2 + 3 +     4 + 5 + 6 +     7 + 8 + 9)

Here, the surrounding parentheses ( ) do the line continuation implicity. Same is the case with [ ] and { }.

For example,

1 2 3

colors = ['red',           'blue',           'green']

We can also put multiple statements in a single line using semicolons, as follows:

1	a = 1; b = 2; c = 3;

---

Python Indentation

Most of the programming language like C, C++ and Java use braces { } to define a block of code. Python however, uses indentation.

A code block (body of a function, loop, etc.) starts with indentation and ends with the first unindented line. The amount of indentation is up to you, but it must be consistent throughout that block.

Generally, four white-spaces are used for indentation and are preferred over tabs. Here is an example.

1 2 3 4

for i in range(1,11):     print(i)     if i == 5:         break

and

1	if True: print('Hello'); a = 5

both are valid and do the same thing, but the former style is clearer.

Incorrect indentation will result in IndentationError.