2.1.2.1 Python literals

Literals - the data in itself

Now that you have a little knowledge of some of the powerful features offered by the print() function, it's time to learn about some new issues, and one important new term - the literal.

A literal is data whose values are determined by the literal itself.

As this is a difficult concept to understand, a good example may be helpful.

Take a look at the following set of digits:

123

Can you guess what value it represents? Of course you can - it's one hundred twenty three.

But what about this:

c

Does it represent any value? Maybe. It can be the symbol of the speed of light, for example. It also can be the constant of integration. Or even the length of a hypotenuse in the sense of a Pythagorean theorem. There are many possibilities.

You cannot choose the right one without some additional knowledge.

And this is the clue: 123 is a literal, and c is not.

You use literals to encode data and to put them into your code. We're now going to show you some conventions you have to obey when using Python.