Exam 3 Study Vocab

Question 1

debugging

Answer 1

The process of finding and removing any of the three kinds of programming errors.

Question 2

exception

Answer 2

An error that occurs at runtime.

Question 3

interpret

Answer 3

To execute a program in a high-level language by translating it one line at a time.

Question 4

parse

Answer 4

To examine a program and analyze the syntactic structure.

Question 5

print statement

Answer 5

An instruction that causes the Python interpreter to display a value on the screen.

Question 6

Python Shell

Answer 6

An interactive user interface to the Python interpreter. The user of a Python shell types commands at the prompt (»>), and presses the return key to send these commands immediately to the interpreter for processing.

Question 7

runtime error

Answer 7

An error that does not occur until the program has started to execute but that prevents the program from continuing.

Question 8

script

Answer 8

A program stored in a file (usually one that will be interpreted).

Question 9

syntax error

Answer 9

An error in a program that makes it impossible to parse — and therefore impossible to interpret.

Question 10

data type

Answer 10

A set of values. The type of a value determines how it can be used in expressions. So far, the types you have seen are integers (type int), floating-point numbers (type float), and strings (type str).

Question 11

expression

Answer 11

A combination of variables, operators, and values that represents a single result value.

Question 12

float

Answer 12

Python data type which stores floating-point numbers. Floating-point numbers are stored internally in two parts: a base and an exponent. When printed in the standard format, they look like decimal numbers. Beware of rounding errors when you use floats, and remember that they are only approximate values.

Question 13

int

Answer 13

A Python data type that holds positive and negative whole numbers.

Question 14

statement

Answer 14

An instruction that the Python interpreter can execute. Examples of statements include the assignment statement and the print statement.

Question 15

str

Answer 15

A Python data type that holds a string of characters.

Question 16

value

Answer 16

A number or string (or other things to be named later) that can be stored in a variable or computed in an expression.

Question 17

variable

Answer 17

A name that refers to a value.

Question 18

for loop

Answer 18

A statement in Python for convenient repetition of statements in the body of the loop.

Question 19

loop body*

Answer 19

Any number of statements nested inside a loop. The nesting is indicated by the fact that the statements are indented under the for loop statement.

Question 20

loop variable

Answer 20

A variable used as part of a for loop. It is assigned a different value on each iteration of the loop.

Question 21

instance

Answer 21

An object of a certain type, or class. tess and alex are different instances of the class Turtle. 
module

Question 22

module

Answer 22

A file containing Python definitions and statements intended for use in other Python programs. The contents of a module are made available to the other program by using the import statement.

Question 23

object

Answer 23

A “thing” to which a variable can refer. This could be a screen window, or one of the turtles you have created.
function

Question 24

function

Answer 24

A named sequence of statements that performs some useful operation. Functions may or may not take parameters and may or may not produce a result.

Question 25

header

Answer 25

The first part of a compound statement. Headers begin with a keyword and end with a colon (:)
import statement

Question 26

import statement

Answer 26

A statement which permits functions and variables defined in a Python script to be brought into the environment of another script or a running Python shell.

Question 27

local variable

Answer 27

A statement which permits functions and variables defined in a Python script to be brought into the environment of another script or a running Python shell

Question 28

parameter

Answer 28

A name used inside a function to refer to the value passed as an argument.

Question 29

boolean expression

Answer 29

An expression that is either true or false.

Question 30

boolean function

Answer 30

A function that returns a boolean value

Question 31

None

Answer 31

A special Python value returned by functions that have no return statement, or a return statement without an argument. None is the only value of the type, NoneType.

Question 32

return value

Answer 32

The value provided as the result of a function call.

Question 33

counter

Answer 33

A variable used to count something, usually initialized to zero and incremented in the body of a loop.

Question 34

cursor

Answer 34

An invisible marker that keeps track of where the next character will be printed.

Question 35

decrement

Answer 35

decrease by 1

Question 36

increment

Answer 36

increase by 1

Question 37

flow of execution

Answer 37

The order in which statements are executed during a program run

Question 38

infinite loop

Answer 38

A loop in which the terminating condition is never satisfied

Question 39

iteration

Answer 39

Repeated execution of a set of programming statements.

Question 40

nested loop

Answer 40

A loop inside the body of another loop

Question 41

new line

Answer 41

A special character that causes the cursor to move to the beginning of the next line.

Question 42

index

Answer 42

A variable or value used to select a member of an ordered set, such as a character from a string.

Question 43

slice

Answer 43

A part of a string (substring) specified by a range of indices. More generally, a subsequence of any sequence type in Python can be created using the slice operator (sequence[start:stop

Question 44

aliases

Answer 44

Multiple variables that contain references to the same object.

Question 45

clone

Answer 45

To create a new object that has the same value as an existing object. Copying a reference to an object creates an alias but doesn’t clone the object.

Question 46

mutable type

Answer 46

A data type in which the elements can be modified. All mutable types are compound types. Lists are mutable data

Question 47

immutable`

Answer 47

A compound data type whose elements cannot be assigned new values

Question 48

sequence

Answer 48

Any of the data types that consist of an ordered set of elements, with each element identified by an index

Question 49

recursion

Answer 49

The process of calling a function that is already executing.

Question 50

recursive call

Answer 50

The statement that calls an already executing function. Recursion can also be indirect — function f can call g which calls h, and h could make a call back to f.

Question 51

dictionary

Answer 51

A collection of key-value pairs that maps from keys to values. The keys can be any immutable type, and the values can be any type.

Question 52

key

Answer 52

A data item that is mapped to a value in a dictionary. Keys are used to look up values in a dictionary.

Question 53

key-value pair

Answer 53

One of the pairs of items in a dictionary. Values are looked up in a dictionary by key.

Question 54

mapping type

Answer 54

A mapping type is a data type comprised of a collection of keys and associated values. Python’s only built-in mapping type is the dictionary. Dictionaries implement the associative array abstract data type.

Question 55

directory

Answer 55

A named collection of files, also called a folder. Directories can contain files and other directories, which are refered to as subdirectories of the directory that contains them

Question 56

file

Answer 56

A named entity, usually stored on a hard drive, floppy disk, or CD-ROM, that contains a stream of characters.

Question 57

delimeter

Answer 57

sequence of one or more characters used to specify the boundary between separate parts of text.

Question 58

mode

Answer 58

A distinct method of operation within a computer program. Files in Python can be openned in one of three modes: read (‘r’), write (‘w’), and append (‘a’).

Question 59

handle

Answer 59

An object in our program that is connected to an underlying resource (e.g. a file). The file handle lets our program manipulate / read/ write / close the actual file that is on our disk.

Question 60

object oriented programming

Answer 60

A powerful style of programming in which data and the operations that manipulate it are organized into classes and methods.

Question 61

class

Answer 61

User defined compound data type. A class, can also be thought of as a template for objects that are an instance of it

Question 62

instance/object

Answer 62

An object whose type is of some class. Instance and object are used interchangeably.

Question 63

method

Answer 63

A function that is defined inside a class definition and is invoked on instances of that class. 
attribute

Question 64

attribute

Answer 64

One of the named data items that makes up an instance.

Question 65

initializer method

Answer 65

A special method in Python (called __init__) that is invoked automatically to set a newly created object’s attributes to their initial (factory-default) state.

Question 66

instantiate

Answer 66

To create an instance of a class, and to run its initializer.

Question 67

GUI

Answer 67

A graphical user interface (GUI) is a human-computer interface that uses windows, icons and menus and which can be manipulated by a mouse (and often to a limited extent by a keyboard as well).

Question 68

widget

Answer 68

an element of a (GUI) that displays an information arrangement changeable by the user, such as a window or a text box.

Question 69

database

Answer 69

an organized collection of data for one or more purposes

Question 70

web scraping

Answer 70

a computer software technique of extracting information from websites

Question 71

canvas

Answer 71

a highly versatile widget which can be used to draw graphs and plots, create graphics editors, and implement various kinds of custom widgets.

Question 72

radiobutton

Answer 72

used to implement one-of-many selections. Radiobuttons can contain text or images, and you can associate a Python function or method with each button. When the button is pressed, Tkinter automatically calls that function or method.
button

Question 73

text entry

Answer 73

allows you to display and edit text with various styles and attributes. The widget also supports embedded images and windows.

Question 74

label

Answer 74

used to display a text or image on the screen. The label can only display text in a single font, but the text may span more than one line. In addition, one of the characters can be underlined, for example to mark a keyboard shortcut.

Question 75

regular expresion

Answer 75

use the backslash character (‘') to indicate special forms or to allow special characters to be used without invoking their special meaning.

Question 76

algorithm

Answer 76

A step-by-step process for solving a category of problems.

bug

Question 77

bug

Answer 77

An error in a program

Question 78

executable

Answer 78

Another name for object code that is ready to be executed.

Question 79

formal language

Answer 79

Any one of the languages that people have designed for specific purposes, such as representing mathematical ideas or computer programs; all programming languages are formal languages.
high-level language

Question 80

compound data type

Answer 80

A data type in which the values are made up of components, or elements, that are themselves values.
default value

Question 81

dot operator

Answer 81

The dot operator ( .) permits access to attributes and functions of a module (or attributes and methods of a class or instance – as we have seen elsewhere).

Question 82

namespace

Answer 82

A syntactic container providing a context for names so that the same name can reside in different namespaces without ambiguity. In Python, modules, classes, functions and methods all form namespaces.

Question 83

naming collision

Answer 83

A situation in which two or more names in a given namespace cannot be unambiguously resolved. Using import string instead of from string import * prevents naming collisions.

Question 84

file system

Answer 84

A method for naming, accessing, and organizing files and the data they contain.
fully qualified name

Question 85

path

Answer 85

a sequence of directory names that specifies the exact location of a file

Question 86

modifier

Answer 86

A function or method that changes one or more of the objects it receives as parameters. Most modifiers are void.

Question 87

whitespace

Answer 87

Any of the characters that move the cursor without printing visible characters. The constant string.whitespace contains all the white-space characters.