Mathematical Operators

Important

This page is under construction. All or part of the content may be incomplete or incorrect.

Arithmetic Operators

The following table lists the arithmetic operators in Python. The first four operators are the basic arithmetic operators. The last two operators are the floor division and modulo operators, respectively.

Operator	Description	Example	Result
+	Addition	1 + 2	3
-	Subtraction	1 - 2	-1
*	Multiplication	1 * 2	2
/	Division	1 / 2	0.5
//	Floor Division	1 // 2	0
%	Modulo	1 % 2	1

Boolean Operators

These operators return True or False (i.e. boolean data type).

Operator	Description	Example.
==	Returns True if left hand operand is equal to right hand operand. Otherwise, returns False	a+b == b+a
!=	Returns True if left hand operand is NOT equal to right hand operand. Otherwise, returns False.	a*b != b/a
<	Returns True if left hand operand is less than right hand operand. Otherwise, returns False.	b/a < b
>	Returns True if left hand operand is greater than right hand operand. Otherwise, returns False.	a*b > b
<=	Returns True if left hand operand is less than or equal to right hand operand. Otherwise, returns False.	a-b <= a
>=	Returns True if left hand operand is greater than or equal to right hand operand. Otherwise, returns False.	a*b >= b*a

a = 2
b = 10

a+b == b+a

True

a+b != a*b

True

a**2 == a*2

True

a+b < a+b

False

a+b <= a+b

True

Comparison Operators

The following table lists the comparison operators in Python. These operators compare two operands and evaluate to either True or False.

Operator	Description	Example	Result
==	Equal To	1 == 2	False
!=	Not Equal To	1 != 2	True
>	Greater Than	1 > 2	False
>=	Greater Than or Equal To	1 >= 2	False
<	Less Than	1 < 2	True
<=	Less Than or Equal To	1 <= 2	True

Logical Operators

The following table lists the logical operators in Python. These operators combine two or more boolean expressions and evaluate to either True or False.

Operator	Description	Example	Result
and	Logical AND	True and False	False
or	Logical OR	True or False	True
not	Logical NOT	not True	False

Identity Operators

The following table lists the identity operators in Python. These operators compare the memory addresses of two operands and evaluate to either True or False.

Operator	Description	Example	Result
is	Identity	1 is 1	True
is not	Non-Identity	1 is not 1	False

Membership Operators

The following table lists the membership operators in Python. These operators evaluate to either True or False depending on whether a value is a member of a sequence.

Operator	Description	Example	Result
in	Membership	1 in [1, 2, 3]	True
not in	Non-Membership	1 not in [1, 2, 3]	False

Assignment Operators

We have already seen the assignment operator = in the previous sections.

The assignment operator has many variations that combine assignment with another operator (primarily arithmetic operators).

The following table lists the assignment operators in Python. These operators assign a value to a variable.

Operator	Description	Example	Result
=	Assignment	x = 1	1
+=	Addition Assignment	x += 1	2
-=	Subtraction Assignment	x -= 1	1
*=	Multiplication Assignment	x *= 2	2
/=	Division Assignment	x /= 2	1
//=	Floor Division Assignment	x //= 2	0
%=	Modulo Assignment	x %= 2	1
&=	Bitwise AND Assignment	x &= 0b101	0b101

Bitwise Operators

The following table lists the bitwise operators in Python. These operators combine two or more bit patterns and evaluate to a new bit pattern.

Operator	Description	Example	Result
&	Bitwise AND	0b101 & 0b110	0b100
|	Bitwise OR	0b101 | 0b110	0b111
^	Bitwise XOR	0b101 ^ 0b110	0b011
~	Bitwise NOT	~0b101	0b010
<<	Bitwise Left Shift	0b101 << 1	0b1010
>>	Bitwise Right Shift	0b101 >> 1	0b10

---

Glossary

arithmetic operator

An operator that performs a mathematical operation on two operands.

assignment operator

An operator that assigns a value to a variable.

bitwise operator

An operator that performs a bitwise operation on two or more bit patterns.

boolean operator

An operator that returns a boolean value.

comparison operator

An operator that compares two operands and evaluates to either True or False.

floor division

An operator that performs integer division and returns the floor of the result.

identity operator

An operator that compares the memory addresses of two operands and evaluates to either True or False.

logical operator

An operator that combines two or more boolean expressions and evaluates to either True or False.

modulo

An operator that performs integer division and returns the remainder of the result.

---

Exercise

1. What is the result of the following expression?

	Expression	Result
i.	1 + 2 * 3
ii.	(1 + 2) * 3
iii.	1 + 2 * 3 - 4 / 5
iv.	1 + 2 * (3 - 4) / 5
v.	1 + 2 * 3 - 4 / 5 ** 6
vi.	1 + 2 * 3 - 4 / 5 ** 6 % 7
vii.	1 + 2 * 3 - 4 / 5 ** 6 % 7 // 8