Creating a Basic Calculator in Python

As a beginner in programming, one of the first things you might want to learn is how to create a calculator. In this tutorial, we will go through the steps of building a basic calculator in Python.

Before we start coding, let's first discuss the steps that we will need to take to build our calculator.

1. Accept input from the user

2. Check the type of operation the user wants to perform (addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division)

3. Perform the appropriate operation

4. Print the result

Now, let's start by writing the code to accept input from the user. In Python, we can use the input() function to accept input from the user. We will store the input in two variables, num1 and num2, which will represent the two numbers that the user wants to perform the operation on.

num1 = input("Enter the first number: ")
num2 = input("Enter the second number: ")

Next, we need to check the type of operation the user wants to perform. We can do this by using an if statement and checking for specific keywords such as "add", "subtract", "multiply", or "divide".

operation = input("Enter the operation you want to perform (+, -, *, /): ")

if operation == "+":
    # code for addition goes here
elif operation == "-":
    # code for subtraction goes here
elif operation == "*":
    # code for multiplication goes here
elif operation == "/":
    # code for division goes here
else:
    # code for invalid input goes here

Now, let's write the code to perform the appropriate operation based on the user's input. We can use the int() function to convert the user's input (which is in string form) to an integer.

if operation == "+":
    result = int(num1) + int(num2)
elif operation == "-":
    result = int(num1) - int(num2)
elif operation == "*":
    result = int(num1) * int(num2)
elif operation == "/":
    result = int(num1) / int(num2)

Finally, we can print the result using the print() function.

print("The result is:", result)

That's it! We have successfully created a basic calculator in Python. Here is the full code for reference:

num1 = input("Enter the first number: ")
num2 = input("Enter the second number: ")

operation = input("Enter the operation you want to perform (+, -, *, /): ")

if operation == "+":
    result = int(num1) + int(num2)
elif operation == "-":
    result = int(num1) - int(num2)
elif operation == "*":
    result = int(num1) * int(num2)
elif operation == "/":
    result = int(num1) / int(num2)

print("The result is:", result)