LEARNING
OBJECTIVES
• Students will be able to learn about Python Keywords and
Identifiers.
• Learn the different rules in naming an identifier.
• Differentiate the valid and invalid identifiers in Python.
Python Keywords and Identifiers
Keywords are predefined, reserved words used in Python
programming that have special meanings to the
compiler.
We cannot use a keyword as a variable name, function
name, or any other identifier. They are used to define
the syntax and structure of the Python language.
All the keywords except True, False and None are in
lowercase and they must be written as they are.
The list of all the keywords is given
below.
Identifiers
arethe name given to variables, classes,
methods, etc.
For example,
language = 'Python‘
Here, language is a variable (an identifier) which
holds the value 'Python'.
We cannot use keywords as variable
names as they are reserved names
that are built-in to Python.
For example,
continue = 'Python‘
The above code is wrong because we
have used continue as a variable name.
Rules for Naming an Identifier
Identifiers cannot be a keyword.
Identifiers are case-sensitive.
It can have a sequence of letters and digits.
However, it must begin with a letter or _. The first
letter of an identifier cannot be a digit.
It's a convention to start an identifier with a letter
rather _.
Whitespaces are not allowed.
We cannot use special symbols like !, @, #, $, and
so on.
Some Valid and Invalid Identifiers in
Python
Things to Remember
Python is a case-sensitive language. This means, Variable and
variable are not the same.
Always give the identifiers a name that makes sense. While c
= 10 is a valid name, writing count = 10 would make more
sense, and it would be easier to figure out what it represents
when you look at your code after a long gap.
Multiple words can be separated using an underscore, like
this_is_a_long_variable.
Example of checking validity of
an identifier:
To find if you can use a name as
an identifier or not, you can use
the ‘isidentifier()’ method. But it is
true for keywords using this
method . So, for keywords, we
have to check using
[Link]().