Programming languages offer a method of storing data for reuse. If there is a greeting we want to present, a date we need to reuse, or a user ID we need to remember we can create a variable which can store a value. In Python, we assign variables by using the equals sign (=
).
message_string = "Hello there" # Prints "Hello there" print(message_string)
In the above example, we store the message “Hello there” in a variable called message_string
. Variables can’t have spaces or symbols in their names other than an underscore (_
). They can’t begin with numbers but they can have numbers after the first letter (e.g., cool_variable_5
is OK).
It’s no coincidence we call these creatures “variables”. If the context of a program changes, we can update a variable but perform the same logical process on it.
# Greeting message_string = "Hello there" print(message_string) # Farewell message_string = "Hasta la vista" print(message_string)
Above, we create the variable message_string
, assign a welcome message, and print the greeting. After we greet the user, we want to wish them goodbye. We then update message_string
to a departure message and print that out.
Instructions
Update the variable meal
to reflect each meal of the day before we print it.