VPython Functions

Written by Kevin Randrup

Claimed Chloe Choi

Edited by Do Young Kim (Fall 2016)

Introduction to functions in Python and applying them to write shorter and more understandable code. Assumes that VPython is installed and you understand the basics of programming in Python.

Summary

Functions at a high level are used to perform a certain task. Functions can accept a number of inputs (also "arguments" or "parameters") and can give back 0 or 1 output values. Furthermore, they make code much easier to understand by encapsulating a task in a single line of code instead of being repeated over and over again.

Functions always start with def, which is short for define, used to define a word with a piece of code, not data. • Function is like a box of commands • Functions can take inputs • The way we pass those inputs is by putting them in parenthesis Functions can return objects (outputs)

def sayHello():
  print "Hello, world"

This is a simple function that defines the variable "sayHello" to return the phrase "Hello, world" (note that the parenthesis will not be printed. Only the Hello, world portion will be printed).

• Note that python uses indent to consider what is under a command. If print "Hello, world" is not indented, then it will not be a part of the function sayHello().

Basic of Functions

Basic Python function syntax

Functions can be defined with the keyword "def" followed by the function name and a colon and a parenthesis. The variable that should be processed by the function goes Inside the parenthesis.

def madlib(name, noun1, noun2, verb):
  result = name + " was looking at his " + noun1 + " when a " + noun2 + " " + verb + " nearby."
  print result

This is a simple function that creates a madlib with the 4 variables that are given as inputs.

For example, if Sally was inputed as the name, lunch as noun1, pterodactyl as noun2, and flew as the verb, the the function will return the phrase Sally was looking at his lunch when a pterodactyl flew nearby

>>> madlib("Sally", "lunch", "pterodactyl", "flew")

Sally was looking at his lunch when a pterodactyl flew nearby. >>>

Returning the output given by a function

When a function takes an input and gives an output such as print in the madlib example, you cannot refer back to the output phrase Sally was looking at his lunch when a pterodactyl flew nearby. If you would like to use this phrase again, then a function called return is needed. When return is added at the end of a function, the output is passed back to the caller, which means that you can refer to the output now.

def madlib(name, noun1, noun2, verb):
  result = name + " was looking at his " + noun1 + " when a " + noun2 + " " + verb + " nearby."
  print result
  return result

With this new code, if you need to refer to the sentence Sally was looking at his lunch when a pterodactyl flew nearby., you can do so by by typing in result.

Example functions

# This function adds three numbers together and gives back the result using the return keyword
def addNumbers(a, b, c):
    return a + b + c

# This function prints every letter in the input
def printLetters(string):
 for letter in string:
  print letter

Writing your own Functions

Writing a function for a task instead of copy and pasting code makes your program much easier to understand and debug. The best way to illustrate this is with an example.

For this example, we will create a function to calculate the electric field created by a point charge.

As a reminder, this is the formula we are modeling:

[math]\displaystyle{ \overrightarrow{E}=\frac{1}{4πε_0} \frac{q}{|\overrightarrow{r}|^2} \hat r }[/math]

First, we ask what do we need to calculate the electric field?

• [math]\displaystyle{ q }[/math] - the charge of the source
• [math]\displaystyle{ \overrightarrow{r} }[/math] - the distance from the source to the electric field

[math]\displaystyle{ q }[/math] and [math]\displaystyle{ \overrightarrow{r} }[/math] will be the two arguments to our function which will look like this:

# Calculates the electric field at a given vector away from the charge
def electricField(q, r):
    electricConstant = 9e9 # 1/(4 * π * e0)
    return electricConstant * q * r.norm() / r.mag2

Using the function

We can apply functions to make our code shorter and easier to understand. Here is some example code that we will shorten with functions.

# Calculate the eletric field in two different places
charge = 1.6e-19
origin = vector(0,0,0)

point1 = vector(-10, 5, 15)
point2 = vector(20, -5, 12)

field1 = 9e9 * charge * point1.norm() / point1.mag2
field2 = 9e9 * charge * point2.norm() / point2.mag2

We can use a function in the last 2 lines to reduce the duplicated code to the following

field1 = electricField(charge, point1)
field2 = electricField(charge, point2)

Frequently Used Functions

VPython already has a few predefined functions for your ease. The following functions are available for working with vectors. To better illustrate these functions, let's say we have a vector called exVector.

exVector = vector(-10, 2 ,5)

mag()

# Calculates the magnitude of a vector
magExVector = mag(exVector)
print magExVector    # will print 11.357

mag2(A)

# Calculates the magnitude squared of a vector
mag2ExVector = mag2(exVector)
print magExVector     # will print 129

norm(A)

# Calculates the unit vector of a vector
unitExVector = norm(exVector)
print unitExVector    # will print <-0.88, 0.17, 0.44>

dot(A, B)

# Calculates the scalar dot product between the two vectors
# exVector2 = vector(4, -2 ,8)
dotExVector = dot(exVector, exVector2)
print dotExVector     # will print 4

cross(A, B)

# Calculates the vector cross product between two vectors
# exVector2 = vector(4, -2 ,8)
crossExVector = cross(exVector, exVector2)
print crossExVector   # will print <26, 100, 12>

See also

Prerequisites

VPython

VPython Basics

Further reading

VPython Common Errors and Troubleshooting

VPython Lists

Python standard function library.