Data Type Conversion

Learn about conversions between different data types in Python.

We'll cover the following

Conversions between data types

There are several different data types available in Python. Sometimes, you might come across a scenario where you need to perform conversions from one data type to another.

In Python, conversions between types can be made by using its built-in functions, a few of which are mentioned below.

Conversion Function Description Example
float()
Converts the element passed to a floating-point number float(123), float("123") = 123.0
int()
Converts the element passed to an integer int(56.78), int("56") = 56
str()
Converts the element passed to a string str(123) = “123”

In Python, the built-in type() function can be used to check the data type of variables.

Using this, let’s look at a few examples to get a better grasp of these built-in functions.

float_var = 56.78 # Float variable
int_var = 123 # Integer variable
str_var = "123.2" # String variable
res_int = int(float_var) # Converting float to integer
print(res_int)
print("Type: ", type(res_int)) # Checking type of res_int
res_str = str(float_var) # Converting float to string
print(res_str)
print("Type: ", type(res_str)) # Checking type of res_str
res_ftr = float(str_var) # Converting string to float
print(res_ftr)
print("Type: ", type(res_ftr)) # Checking type of res_ftr

Although not its main functionality, the round() function can also be used to convert data types. For example, round(56.78) returns 57. Over here, the floating-point number is rounded to the nearest integer.

## Using round() for converting data types
# Note, the 0 represents the number of decimals you want the number to be rounded off to. 
float_var = 56.78
print(round(float_var, 0)) # We don't want any decimal numbers over here.