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You're reading from  Scientific Computing with Python 3

Product typeBook
Published inDec 2016
Reading LevelBeginner
PublisherPackt
ISBN-139781786463517
Edition1st Edition
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Authors (3):
Claus Führer
Claus Führer
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Claus Führer

Claus Führer is a professor of scientific computations at Lund University, Sweden. He has an extensive teaching record that includes intensive programming courses in numerical analysis and engineering mathematics across various levels in many different countries and teaching environments. Claus also develops numerical software in research collaboration with industry and received Lund University's Faculty of Engineering Best Teacher Award in 2016.
Read more about Claus Führer

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Return values


A function in Python always returns a single object. If a function has to return more than one object, these are packed and returned as a single tuple object.

For instance, the following function takes a complex number z and returns its polar coordinate representation as magnitude r and angle  according to Euler’s formula:

And the Python counterpart would be this:

def complex_to_polar(z):
    r = sqrt(z.real ** 2 + z.imag ** 2)
    phi = arctan2(z.imag, z.real)
    return (r,phi)  # here the return object is formed

Here, we used the sqrt(x) NumPy function for the square root of a number x and arctan2(x,y) for the expression tan-1(x/y).

Let us try our function:

z = 3 + 5j  # here we define a complex number
a = complex_to_polar(z)
r = a[0]
phi = a[1]

The last three statements can be written more elegantly in a single line:

r,phi = complex_to_polar(z)

We can test our function by calling polar_to_comp; refer to Exercise 1.

If a function has no return statement...

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Scientific Computing with Python 3
Published in: Dec 2016Publisher: PacktISBN-13: 9781786463517

Authors (3)

author image
Claus Führer

Claus Führer is a professor of scientific computations at Lund University, Sweden. He has an extensive teaching record that includes intensive programming courses in numerical analysis and engineering mathematics across various levels in many different countries and teaching environments. Claus also develops numerical software in research collaboration with industry and received Lund University's Faculty of Engineering Best Teacher Award in 2016.
Read more about Claus Führer