Chicago Python Workshop/Chicago Python Workshop 1/Friday/Windows Python scripts
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We are going to practice writing and running Python scripts.
Start your text editor
- Launch the Notepad++ text editor. See the Windows text editor setup instructions for the steps to do this.
- Start a new, blank text file.
Write and save a short Python script
- Add the following line to your new text file:
print "Hello World!"
- Saving the script
- Click either the Save button or going to
File > Save
- Then, navigate to your Desktop folder, which will be under
C:\Documents and Settings\<username>
orC:\Users\<username>
. - Once you've double clicked on the Desktop folder, then click the new folder icon. Then name it
python
. This is where we will keep all our python code and projects, so that it's easy to find. - Then click through the python folder you just created, and save the file as
hello.py
in this python directory. The.py
extension indicates that this file contains Python code.
- Click either the Save button or going to
Run the script
- Start a new command prompt. See the terminal navigation on Windows instructions for the steps to do this. Recall that a terminal prompt will look like
C:\
and a Python prompt will look like>>>
. Make sure you are at a terminal prompt and not a Python prompt; if you are at a Python prompt, you can typeexit()
on a line by itself and then hit enter to exit Python and return to a terminal prompt. - Navigate to your python directory, which is in your desktop directory, from a command prompt, using the
dir
andcd
commands. See the terminal navigation on Windows instructions for a refresher on using these commands. Don't hesitate to get help from a staff member on this step if you need it -- it's a new way of navigating your computer, so it may be unintuitive at first! - Once you are in your python directory, you'll see
hello.py
in the output ofdir
. - Type
python hello.py
and hit enter. Doing this will cause Python to execute the contents of that script -- it should print "Hello World!" to the screen. What you've done here is run the Python application with an argument -- the name of a file, in this case "hello.py". Python knows that when you give it a file name as an argument, it should execute the contents of the provided file. You get the same result as if you typed
print "Hello World!"
at a Python prompt and hit enter.
Success
You created and ran your first Python script!
- When you run the
python
command by itself, you start a Python prompt. You can execute Python code interactively at that prompt. - When you run the
python
command with a file name as an argument, Python executes the Python code in that file.