Python

Python
Notes for Professionals
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Notes for Professionals

800+ pages
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Contents
About ................................................................................................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 1: Getting started with Python Language ...................................................................................... 2
Section 1.1: Getting Started ........................................................................................................................................... 2
Section 1.2: Creating variables and assigning values ................................................................................................ 6
Section 1.3: Block Indentation ..................................................................................................................................... 10
Section 1.4: Datatypes ................................................................................................................................................. 11
Section 1.5: Collection Types ...................................................................................................................................... 15
Section 1.6: IDLE - Python GUI .................................................................................................................................... 19
Section 1.7: User Input ................................................................................................................................................. 21
Section 1.8: Built in Modules and Functions .............................................................................................................. 21
Section 1.9: Creating a module ................................................................................................................................... 25
Section 1.10: Installation of Python 2.7.x and 3.x ....................................................................................................... 26
Section 1.11: String function - str() and repr() ........................................................................................................... 28
Section 1.12: Installing external modules using pip ................................................................................................... 29
Section 1.13: Help Utility ............................................................................................................................................... 31
Chapter 2: Python Data Types ............................................................................................................................ 33
Section 2.1: String Data Type ..................................................................................................................................... 33
Section 2.2: Set Data Types ....................................................................................................................................... 33
Section 2.3: Numbers data type ................................................................................................................................ 33
Section 2.4: List Data Type ......................................................................................................................................... 34
Section 2.5: Dictionary Data Type ............................................................................................................................. 34
Section 2.6: Tuple Data Type ..................................................................................................................................... 34
Chapter 3: Indentation ............................................................................................................................................. 35
Section 3.1: Simple example ....................................................................................................................................... 35
Section 3.2: How Indentation is Parsed ..................................................................................................................... 35
Section 3.3: Indentation Errors ................................................................................................................................... 36
Chapter 4: Comments and Documentation .................................................................................................. 37
Section 4.1: Single line, inline and multiline comments ............................................................................................ 37
Section 4.2: Programmatically accessing docstrings .............................................................................................. 37
Section 4.3: Write documentation using docstrings ................................................................................................ 38
Chapter 5: Date and Time ...................................................................................................................................... 42
Section 5.1: Parsing a string into a timezone aware datetime object .................................................................... 42
Section 5.2: Constructing timezone-aware datetimes ............................................................................................ 42
Section 5.3: Computing time dierences .................................................................................................................. 44
Section 5.4: Basic datetime objects usage ............................................................................................................... 44
Section 5.5: Switching between time zones .............................................................................................................. 45
Section 5.6: Simple date arithmetic ........................................................................................................................... 45
Section 5.7: Converting timestamp to datetime ...................................................................................................... 46
Section 5.8: Subtracting months from a date accurately ....................................................................................... 46
Section 5.9: Parsing an arbitrary ISO 8601 timestamp with minimal libraries ...................................................... 46
Section 5.10: Get an ISO 8601 timestamp .................................................................................................................. 47
Section 5.11: Parsing a string with a short time zone name into a timezone aware datetime object ................ 47
Section 5.12: Fuzzy datetime parsing (extracting datetime out of a text) ............................................................ 48
Section 5.13: Iterate over dates .................................................................................................................................. 49
Chapter 6: Date Formatting .................................................................................................................................. 50
Section 6.1: Time between two date-times ............................................................................................................... 50
Section 6.2: Outputting datetime object to string .................................................................................................... 50
 Section 6.3: Parsing string to datetime object ......................................................................................................... 50
Chapter 7: Enum .......................................................................................................................................................... 51
Section 7.1: Creating an enum (Python 2.4 through 3.3) ......................................................................................... 51
Section 7.2: Iteration ................................................................................................................................................... 51
Chapter 8: Set ............................................................................................................................................................... 52
Section 8.1: Operations on sets .................................................................................................................................. 52
Section 8.2: Get the unique elements of a list .......................................................................................................... 53
Section 8.3: Set of Sets ................................................................................................................................................ 53
Section 8.4: Set Operations using Methods and Builtins ......................................................................................... 53
Section 8.5: Sets versus multisets .............................................................................................................................. 55
Chapter 9: Simple Mathematical Operators ................................................................................................. 57
Section 9.1: Division ..................................................................................................................................................... 57
Section 9.2: Addition .................................................................................................................................................... 58
Section 9.3: Exponentiation ........................................................................................................................................ 59
Section 9.4: Trigonometric Functions ........................................................................................................................ 60
Section 9.5: Inplace Operations ................................................................................................................................. 61
Section 9.6: Subtraction .............................................................................................................................................. 61
Section 9.7: Multiplication ........................................................................................................................................... 61
Section 9.8: Logarithms .............................................................................................................................................. 62
Section 9.9: Modulus ................................................................................................................................................... 62
Chapter 10: Bitwise Operators ............................................................................................................................. 65
Section 10.1: Bitwise NOT ............................................................................................................................................ 65
Section 10.2: Bitwise XOR (Exclusive OR) .................................................................................................................. 66
Section 10.3: Bitwise AND ............................................................................................................................................ 67
Section 10.4: Bitwise OR .............................................................................................................................................. 67
Section 10.5: Bitwise Left Shift .................................................................................................................................... 67
Section 10.6: Bitwise Right Shift .................................................................................................................................. 68
Section 10.7: Inplace Operations ................................................................................................................................ 68
Chapter 11: Boolean Operators ............................................................................................................................ 69
Section 11.1: `and` and `or` are not guaranteed to return a boolean ...................................................................... 69
Section 11.2: A simple example ................................................................................................................................... 69
Section 11.3: Short-circuit evaluation ......................................................................................................................... 69
Section 11.4: and ........................................................................................................................................................... 70
Section 11.5: or .............................................................................................................................................................. 70
Section 11.6: not ............................................................................................................................................................ 71
Chapter 12: Operator Precedence ...................................................................................................................... 72
Section 12.1: Simple Operator Precedence Examples in python ............................................................................. 72
Chapter 13: Variable Scope and Binding ......................................................................................................... 73
Section 13.1: Nonlocal Variables ................................................................................................................................. 73
Section 13.2: Global Variables .................................................................................................................................... 73
Section 13.3: Local Variables ...................................................................................................................................... 74
Section 13.4: The del command ................................................................................................................................. 75
Section 13.5: Functions skip class scope when looking up names ......................................................................... 76
Section 13.6: Local vs Global Scope ........................................................................................................................... 77
Section 13.7: Binding Occurrence ............................................................................................................................... 79
Chapter 14: Conditionals ......................................................................................................................................... 80
Section 14.1: Conditional Expression (or "The Ternary Operator") ......................................................................... 80
Section 14.2: if, elif, and else ....................................................................................................................................... 80
Section 14.3: Truth Values ........................................................................................................................................... 80
 Section 14.4: Boolean Logic Expressions ................................................................................................................... 81
Section 14.5: Using the cmp function to get the comparison result of two objects ............................................. 83
Section 14.6: Else statement ....................................................................................................................................... 83
Section 14.7: Testing if an object is None and assigning it ...................................................................................... 84
Section 14.8: If statement ............................................................................................................................................ 84
Chapter 15: Comparisons ........................................................................................................................................ 86
Section 15.1: Chain Comparisons ................................................................................................................................ 86
Section 15.2: Comparison by `is` vs `==` ...................................................................................................................... 87
Section 15.3: Greater than or less than ...................................................................................................................... 88
Section 15.4: Not equal to ........................................................................................................................................... 88
Section 15.5: Equal To ................................................................................................................................................. 89
Section 15.6: Comparing Objects ............................................................................................................................... 89
Chapter 16: Loops ....................................................................................................................................................... 91
Section 16.1: Break and Continue in Loops ................................................................................................................ 91
Section 16.2: For loops ................................................................................................................................................ 93
Section 16.3: Iterating over lists .................................................................................................................................. 93
Section 16.4: Loops with an "else" clause .................................................................................................................. 94
Section 16.5: The Pass Statement .............................................................................................................................. 96
Section 16.6: Iterating over dictionaries .................................................................................................................... 97
Section 16.7: The "half loop" do-while ........................................................................................................................ 98
Section 16.8: Looping and Unpacking ....................................................................................................................... 98
Section 16.9: Iterating dierent portion of a list with dierent step size ............................................................... 99
Section 16.10: While Loop .......................................................................................................................................... 100
Chapter 17: Arrays .................................................................................................................................................... 102
Section 17.1: Access individual elements through indexes ..................................................................................... 102
Section 17.2: Basic Introduction to Arrays .............................................................................................................. 102
Section 17.3: Append any value to the array using append() method ................................................................ 103
Section 17.4: Insert value in an array using insert() method ................................................................................ 103
Section 17.5: Extend python array using extend() method ................................................................................... 103
Section 17.6: Add items from list into array using fromlist() method .................................................................. 104
Section 17.7: Remove any array element using remove() method ..................................................................... 104
Section 17.8: Remove last array element using pop() method ............................................................................ 104
Section 17.9: Fetch any element through its index using index() method ........................................................... 104
Section 17.10: Reverse a python array using reverse() method ........................................................................... 104
Section 17.11: Get array buer information through buer_info() method ........................................................ 105
Section 17.12: Check for number of occurrences of an element using count() method .................................... 105
Section 17.13: Convert array to string using tostring() method ............................................................................ 105
Section 17.14: Convert array to a python list with same elements using tolist() method .................................. 105
Section 17.15: Append a string to char array using fromstring() method ........................................................... 105
Chapter 18: Multidimensional arrays .............................................................................................................. 106
Section 18.1: Lists in lists ............................................................................................................................................ 106
Section 18.2: Lists in lists in lists in.. .......................................................................................................................... 106
Chapter 19: Dictionary ............................................................................................................................................ 108
Section 19.1: Introduction to Dictionary ................................................................................................................... 108
Section 19.2: Avoiding KeyError Exceptions ........................................................................................................... 109
Section 19.3: Iterating Over a Dictionary ................................................................................................................. 109
Section 19.4: Dictionary with default values ........................................................................................................... 110
Section 19.5: Merging dictionaries ........................................................................................................................... 111
Section 19.6: Accessing keys and values ................................................................................................................ 111
Section 19.7: Accessing values of a dictionary ....................................................................................................... 112
 Section 19.8: Creating a dictionary .......................................................................................................................... 112
Section 19.9: Creating an ordered dictionary ......................................................................................................... 113
Section 19.10: Unpacking dictionaries using the ** operator ................................................................................. 113
Section 19.11: The trailing comma ............................................................................................................................ 114
Section 19.12: The dict() constructor ........................................................................................................................ 114
Section 19.13: Dictionaries Example ......................................................................................................................... 114
Section 19.14: All combinations of dictionary values .............................................................................................. 115
Chapter 20: List ......................................................................................................................................................... 117
Section 20.1: List methods and supported operators ............................................................................................ 117
Section 20.2: Accessing list values .......................................................................................................................... 122
Section 20.3: Checking if list is empty ..................................................................................................................... 123
Section 20.4: Iterating over a list ............................................................................................................................. 123
Section 20.5: Checking whether an item is in a list ................................................................................................ 124
Section 20.6: Any and All .......................................................................................................................................... 124
Section 20.7: Reversing list elements ...................................................................................................................... 125
Section 20.8: Concatenate and Merge lists ............................................................................................................ 125
Section 20.9: Length of a list .................................................................................................................................... 126
Section 20.10: Remove duplicate values in list ....................................................................................................... 126
Section 20.11: Comparison of lists ............................................................................................................................ 127
Section 20.12: Accessing values in nested list ........................................................................................................ 127
Section 20.13: Initializing a List to a Fixed Number of Elements ........................................................................... 128
Chapter 21: List comprehensions ...................................................................................................................... 130
Section 21.1: List Comprehensions ........................................................................................................................... 130
Section 21.2: Conditional List Comprehensions ...................................................................................................... 132
Section 21.3: Avoid repetitive and expensive operations using conditional clause ............................................ 134
Section 21.4: Dictionary Comprehensions ............................................................................................................... 135
Section 21.5: List Comprehensions with Nested Loops .......................................................................................... 136
Section 21.6: Generator Expressions ........................................................................................................................ 138
Section 21.7: Set Comprehensions ........................................................................................................................... 140
Section 21.8: Refactoring filter and map to list comprehensions ......................................................................... 140
Section 21.9: Comprehensions involving tuples ...................................................................................................... 141
Section 21.10: Counting Occurrences Using Comprehension ............................................................................... 142
Section 21.11: Changing Types in a List .................................................................................................................... 142
Section 21.12: Nested List Comprehensions ............................................................................................................ 142
Section 21.13: Iterate two or more list simultaneously within list comprehension .............................................. 143
Chapter 22: List slicing (selecting parts of lists) ....................................................................................... 144
Section 22.1: Using the third "step" argument ........................................................................................................ 144
Section 22.2: Selecting a sublist from a list ............................................................................................................ 144
Section 22.3: Reversing a list with slicing ................................................................................................................ 144
Section 22.4: Shifting a list using slicing .................................................................................................................. 144
Chapter 23: groupby() ............................................................................................................................................ 146
Section 23.1: Example 4 ............................................................................................................................................. 146
Section 23.2: Example 2 ............................................................................................................................................ 146
Section 23.3: Example 3 ............................................................................................................................................ 147
Chapter 24: Linked lists ......................................................................................................................................... 149
Section 24.1: Single linked list example ................................................................................................................... 149
Chapter 25: Linked List Node ............................................................................................................................. 154
Section 25.1: Write a simple Linked List Node in python ....................................................................................... 154
Chapter 26: Filter ...................................................................................................................................................... 155
 Section 26.1: Basic use of filter ................................................................................................................................. 155
Section 26.2: Filter without function ........................................................................................................................ 155
Section 26.3: Filter as short-circuit check ............................................................................................................... 156
Section 26.4: Complementary function: filterfalse, ifilterfalse .............................................................................. 156
Chapter 27: Heapq ................................................................................................................................................... 158
Section 27.1: Largest and smallest items in a collection ....................................................................................... 158
Section 27.2: Smallest item in a collection .............................................................................................................. 158
Chapter 28: Tuple ..................................................................................................................................................... 160
Section 28.1: Tuple ..................................................................................................................................................... 160
Section 28.2: Tuples are immutable ........................................................................................................................ 161
Section 28.3: Packing and Unpacking Tuples ........................................................................................................ 161
Section 28.4: Built-in Tuple Functions ..................................................................................................................... 162
Section 28.5: Tuple Are Element-wise Hashable and Equatable ......................................................................... 163
Section 28.6: Indexing Tuples ................................................................................................................................... 164
Section 28.7: Reversing Elements ............................................................................................................................ 164
Chapter 29: Basic Input and Output ............................................................................................................... 165
Section 29.1: Using the print function ...................................................................................................................... 165
Section 29.2: Input from a File ................................................................................................................................. 165
Section 29.3: Read from stdin .................................................................................................................................. 167
Section 29.4: Using input() and raw_input() .......................................................................................................... 167
Section 29.5: Function to prompt user for a number ............................................................................................ 167
Section 29.6: Printing a string without a newline at the end ................................................................................. 168
Chapter 30: Files & Folders I/O ......................................................................................................................... 171
Section 30.1: File modes ............................................................................................................................................ 171
Section 30.2: Reading a file line-by-line .................................................................................................................. 172
Section 30.3: Iterate files (recursively) .................................................................................................................... 173
Section 30.4: Getting the full contents of a file ...................................................................................................... 173
Section 30.5: Writing to a file ................................................................................................................................... 174
Section 30.6: Check whether a file or path exists .................................................................................................. 175
Section 30.7: Random File Access Using mmap .................................................................................................... 176
Section 30.8: Replacing text in a file ....................................................................................................................... 176
Section 30.9: Checking if a file is empty ................................................................................................................. 176
Section 30.10: Read a file between a range of lines .............................................................................................. 177
Section 30.11: Copy a directory tree ........................................................................................................................ 177
Section 30.12: Copying contents of one file to a dierent file .............................................................................. 177
Chapter 31: os.path .................................................................................................................................................. 178
Section 31.1: Join Paths ............................................................................................................................................. 178
Section 31.2: Path Component Manipulation .......................................................................................................... 178
Section 31.3: Get the parent directory ..................................................................................................................... 178
Section 31.4: If the given path exists ........................................................................................................................ 178
Section 31.5: check if the given path is a directory, file, symbolic link, mount point etc .................................... 179
Section 31.6: Absolute Path from Relative Path ..................................................................................................... 179
Chapter 32: Iterables and Iterators ................................................................................................................ 180
Section 32.1: Iterator vs Iterable vs Generator ....................................................................................................... 180
Section 32.2: Extract values one by one ................................................................................................................. 181
Section 32.3: Iterating over entire iterable ............................................................................................................. 181
Section 32.4: Verify only one element in iterable .................................................................................................. 181
Section 32.5: What can be iterable .......................................................................................................................... 182
Section 32.6: Iterator isn't reentrant! ....................................................................................................................... 182
Chapter 33: Functions ............................................................................................................................................. 183
Section 33.1: Defining and calling simple functions ............................................................................................... 183
Section 33.2: Defining a function with an arbitrary number of arguments ........................................................ 184
Section 33.3: Lambda (Inline/Anonymous) Functions .......................................................................................... 187
Section 33.4: Defining a function with optional arguments .................................................................................. 189
Section 33.5: Defining a function with optional mutable arguments ................................................................... 190
Section 33.6: Argument passing and mutability .................................................................................................... 191
Section 33.7: Returning values from functions ....................................................................................................... 192
Section 33.8: Closure ................................................................................................................................................. 192
Section 33.9: Forcing the use of named parameters ............................................................................................ 193
Section 33.10: Nested functions ............................................................................................................................... 194
Section 33.11: Recursion limit .................................................................................................................................... 194
Section 33.12: Recursive Lambda using assigned variable ................................................................................... 195
Section 33.13: Recursive functions ........................................................................................................................... 195
Section 33.14: Defining a function with arguments ................................................................................................ 196
Section 33.15: Iterable and dictionary unpacking .................................................................................................. 196
Section 33.16: Defining a function with multiple arguments ................................................................................. 198
Chapter 34: Defining functions with list arguments .............................................................................. 199
Section 34.1: Function and Call ................................................................................................................................. 199
Chapter 35: Functional Programming in Python ...................................................................................... 201
Section 35.1: Lambda Function ................................................................................................................................ 201
Section 35.2: Map Function ...................................................................................................................................... 201
Section 35.3: Reduce Function ................................................................................................................................. 201
Section 35.4: Filter Function ..................................................................................................................................... 201
Chapter 36: Partial functions .............................................................................................................................. 202
Section 36.1: Raise the power ................................................................................................................................... 202
Chapter 37: Decorators ......................................................................................................................................... 203
Section 37.1: Decorator function .............................................................................................................................. 203
Section 37.2: Decorator class ................................................................................................................................... 204
Section 37.3: Decorator with arguments (decorator factory) .............................................................................. 205
Section 37.4: Making a decorator look like the decorated function .................................................................... 207
Section 37.5: Using a decorator to time a function ............................................................................................... 207
Section 37.6: Create singleton class with a decorator .......................................................................................... 208
Chapter 38: Classes ................................................................................................................................................. 209
Section 38.1: Introduction to classes ........................................................................................................................ 209
Section 38.2: Bound, unbound, and static methods .............................................................................................. 210
Section 38.3: Basic inheritance ................................................................................................................................ 212
Section 38.4: Monkey Patching ................................................................................................................................ 214
Section 38.5: New-style vs. old-style classes .......................................................................................................... 214
Section 38.6: Class methods: alternate initializers ................................................................................................. 215
Section 38.7: Multiple Inheritance ............................................................................................................................ 217
Section 38.8: Properties ............................................................................................................................................ 219
Section 38.9: Default values for instance variables ............................................................................................... 220
Section 38.10: Class and instance variables ........................................................................................................... 221
Section 38.11: Class composition .............................................................................................................................. 222
Section 38.12: Listing All Class Members ................................................................................................................. 223
Section 38.13: Singleton class ................................................................................................................................... 224
Section 38.14: Descriptors and Dotted Lookups .................................................................................................... 225
Chapter 39: Metaclasses ....................................................................................................................................... 226
 Section 39.1: Basic Metaclasses ............................................................................................................................... 226
Section 39.2: Singletons using metaclasses ........................................................................................................... 227
Section 39.3: Using a metaclass .............................................................................................................................. 227
Section 39.4: Introduction to Metaclasses .............................................................................................................. 227
Section 39.5: Custom functionality with metaclasses ........................................................................................... 228
Section 39.6: The default metaclass ....................................................................................................................... 229
Chapter 40: String Formatting ......................................................................................................................... 232
Section 40.1: Basics of String Formatting ............................................................................................................... 232
Section 40.2: Alignment and padding ..................................................................................................................... 233
Section 40.3: Format literals (f-string) .................................................................................................................... 234
Section 40.4: Float formatting ................................................................................................................................. 234
Section 40.5: Named placeholders ......................................................................................................................... 235
Section 40.6: String formatting with datetime ....................................................................................................... 236
Section 40.7: Formatting Numerical Values ........................................................................................................... 236
Section 40.8: Nested formatting .............................................................................................................................. 237
Section 40.9: Format using Getitem and Getattr ................................................................................................... 237
Section 40.10: Padding and truncating strings, combined .................................................................................... 237
Section 40.11: Custom formatting for a class ......................................................................................................... 238
Chapter 41: String Methods ................................................................................................................................ 240
Section 41.1: Changing the capitalization of a string ............................................................................................. 240
Section 41.2: str.translate: Translating characters in a string ............................................................................... 241
Section 41.3: str.format and f-strings: Format values into a string ...................................................................... 242
Section 41.4: String module's useful constants ....................................................................................................... 243
Section 41.5: Stripping unwanted leading/trailing characters from a string ...................................................... 244
Section 41.6: Reversing a string ............................................................................................................................... 245
Section 41.7: Split a string based on a delimiter into a list of strings ................................................................... 245
Section 41.8: Replace all occurrences of one substring with another substring ................................................ 246
Section 41.9: Testing what a string is composed of ............................................................................................... 247
Section 41.10: String Contains ................................................................................................................................... 249
Section 41.11: Join a list of strings into one string ................................................................................................... 249
Section 41.12: Counting number of times a substring appears in a string .......................................................... 250
Section 41.13: Case insensitive string comparisons ................................................................................................ 250
Section 41.14: Justify strings ..................................................................................................................................... 251
Section 41.15: Test the starting and ending characters of a string ...................................................................... 252
Section 41.16: Conversion between str or bytes data and unicode characters .................................................. 253
Chapter 42: Using loops within functions .................................................................................................... 255
Section 42.1: Return statement inside loop in a function ...................................................................................... 255
Chapter 43: Importing modules ........................................................................................................................ 256
Section 43.1: Importing a module ............................................................................................................................ 256
Section 43.2: The __all__ special variable ............................................................................................................ 257
Section 43.3: Import modules from an arbitrary filesystem location .................................................................. 258
Section 43.4: Importing all names from a module ................................................................................................ 258
Section 43.5: Programmatic importing ................................................................................................................... 259
Section 43.6: PEP8 rules for Imports ....................................................................................................................... 259
Section 43.7: Importing specific names from a module ........................................................................................ 260
Section 43.8: Importing submodules ....................................................................................................................... 260
Section 43.9: Re-importing a module ...................................................................................................................... 260
Section 43.10: __import__() function ..................................................................................................................... 261
Chapter 44: Dierence between Module and Package ...................................................................... 262
Section 44.1: Modules ................................................................................................................................................ 262
 Section 44.2: Packages ............................................................................................................................................. 262
Chapter 45: Math Module .................................................................................................................................... 264
Section 45.1: Rounding: round, floor, ceil, trunc ...................................................................................................... 264
Section 45.2: Trigonometry ...................................................................................................................................... 265
Section 45.3: Pow for faster exponentiation ........................................................................................................... 266
Section 45.4: Infinity and NaN ("not a number") ................................................................................................... 266
Section 45.5: Logarithms .......................................................................................................................................... 269
Section 45.6: Constants ............................................................................................................................................ 269
Section 45.7: Imaginary Numbers ........................................................................................................................... 270
Section 45.8: Copying signs ..................................................................................................................................... 270
Section 45.9: Complex numbers and the cmath module ...................................................................................... 270
Chapter 46: Complex math ................................................................................................................................. 273
Section 46.1: Advanced complex arithmetic ........................................................................................................... 273
Section 46.2: Basic complex arithmetic .................................................................................................................. 274
Chapter 47: Collections module ....................................................................................................................... 275
Section 47.1: collections.Counter .............................................................................................................................. 275
Section 47.2: collections.OrderedDict ...................................................................................................................... 276
Section 47.3: collections.defaultdict ......................................................................................................................... 277
Section 47.4: collections.namedtuple ...................................................................................................................... 278
Section 47.5: collections.deque ................................................................................................................................ 279
Section 47.6: collections.ChainMap .......................................................................................................................... 280
Chapter 48: Operator module ........................................................................................................................... 282
Section 48.1: Itemgetter ............................................................................................................................................ 282
Section 48.2: Operators as alternative to an infix operator ................................................................................. 282
Section 48.3: Methodcaller ....................................................................................................................................... 282
Chapter 49: JSON Module .................................................................................................................................... 284
Section 49.1: Storing data in a file ............................................................................................................................ 284
Section 49.2: Retrieving data from a file ................................................................................................................ 284
Section 49.3: Formatting JSON output ................................................................................................................... 284
Section 49.4: `load` vs `loads`, `dump` vs `dumps` ................................................................................................... 285
Section 49.5: Calling `json.tool` from the command line to pretty-print JSON output ...................................... 286
Section 49.6: JSON encoding custom objects ........................................................................................................ 286
Section 49.7: Creating JSON from Python dict ...................................................................................................... 287
Section 49.8: Creating Python dict from JSON ...................................................................................................... 287
Chapter 50: Sqlite3 Module ................................................................................................................................. 289
Section 50.1: Sqlite3 - Not require separate server process ................................................................................. 289
Section 50.2: Getting the values from the database and Error handling ........................................................... 289
Chapter 51: The os Module ................................................................................................................................... 291
Section 51.1: makedirs - recursive directory creation ............................................................................................ 291
Section 51.2: Create a directory ............................................................................................................................... 292
Section 51.3: Get current directory .......................................................................................................................... 292
Section 51.4: Determine the name of the operating system ................................................................................ 292
Section 51.5: Remove a directory ............................................................................................................................ 292
Section 51.6: Follow a symlink (POSIX) .................................................................................................................... 292
Section 51.7: Change permissions on a file ............................................................................................................. 292
Chapter 52: The locale Module .......................................................................................................................... 293
Section 52.1: Currency Formatting US Dollars Using the locale Module ............................................................. 293
Chapter 53: Itertools Module .............................................................................................................................. 294
Section 53.1: Combinations method in Itertools Module ....................................................................................... 294
 Section 53.2: itertools.dropwhile .............................................................................................................................. 294
Section 53.3: Zipping two iterators until they are both exhausted ...................................................................... 295
Section 53.4: Take a slice of a generator ............................................................................................................... 295
Section 53.5: Grouping items from an iterable object using a function .............................................................. 296
Section 53.6: itertools.takewhile ............................................................................................................................... 297
Section 53.7: itertools.permutations ........................................................................................................................ 297
Section 53.8: itertools.repeat .................................................................................................................................... 298
Section 53.9: Get an accumulated sum of numbers in an iterable ...................................................................... 298
Section 53.10: Cycle through elements in an iterator ............................................................................................ 298
Section 53.11: itertools.product ................................................................................................................................. 298
Section 53.12: itertools.count .................................................................................................................................... 299
Section 53.13: Chaining multiple iterators together ............................................................................................... 300
Chapter 54: Asyncio Module ............................................................................................................................... 301
Section 54.1: Coroutine and Delegation Syntax ..................................................................................................... 301
Section 54.2: Asynchronous Executors ................................................................................................................... 302
Section 54.3: Using UVLoop ..................................................................................................................................... 303
Section 54.4: Synchronization Primitive: Event ....................................................................................................... 303
Section 54.5: A Simple Websocket .......................................................................................................................... 304
Section 54.6: Common Misconception about asyncio .......................................................................................... 304
Chapter 55: Random module ............................................................................................................................. 307
Section 55.1: Creating a random user password ................................................................................................... 307
Section 55.2: Create cryptographically secure random numbers ....................................................................... 307
Section 55.3: Random and sequences: shue, choice and sample .................................................................... 308
Section 55.4: Creating random integers and floats: randint, randrange, random, and uniform ...................... 309
Section 55.5: Reproducible random numbers: Seed and State ............................................................................ 310
Section 55.6: Random Binary Decision ................................................................................................................... 311
Chapter 56: Functools Module ........................................................................................................................... 312
Section 56.1: partial ................................................................................................................................................... 312
Section 56.2: cmp_to_key ....................................................................................................................................... 312
Section 56.3: lru_cache ............................................................................................................................................. 312
Section 56.4: total_ordering ..................................................................................................................................... 313
Section 56.5: reduce .................................................................................................................................................. 314
Chapter 57: The dis module ................................................................................................................................ 315
Section 57.1: What is Python bytecode? ................................................................................................................. 315
Section 57.2: Constants in the dis module .............................................................................................................. 315
Section 57.3: Disassembling modules ..................................................................................................................... 315
Chapter 58: The base64 Module ....................................................................................................................... 317
Section 58.1: Encoding and Decoding Base64 ....................................................................................................... 318
Section 58.2: Encoding and Decoding Base32 ....................................................................................................... 319
Section 58.3: Encoding and Decoding Base16 ........................................................................................................ 320
Section 58.4: Encoding and Decoding ASCII85 ...................................................................................................... 320
Section 58.5: Encoding and Decoding Base85 ....................................................................................................... 321
Chapter 59: Queue Module .................................................................................................................................. 322
Section 59.1: Simple example ................................................................................................................................... 322
Chapter 60: Deque Module .................................................................................................................................. 324
Section 60.1: Basic deque using ............................................................................................................................... 324
Section 60.2: Available methods in deque .............................................................................................................. 324
Section 60.3: limit deque size ................................................................................................................................... 325
Section 60.4: Breadth First Search .......................................................................................................................... 325
Chapter 61: Webbrowser Module ...................................................................................................................... 326
Section 61.1: Opening a URL with Default Browser ................................................................................................ 326
Section 61.2: Opening a URL with Dierent Browsers ........................................................................................... 327
Chapter 62: tkinter ................................................................................................................................................... 328
Section 62.1: Geometry Managers ........................................................................................................................... 328
Section 62.2: A minimal tkinter Application ............................................................................................................ 329
Chapter 63: pyautogui module .......................................................................................................................... 331
Section 63.1: Mouse Functions .................................................................................................................................. 331
Section 63.2: Keyboard Functions ........................................................................................................................... 331
Section 63.3: Screenshot And Image Recognition ................................................................................................. 331
Chapter 64: Indexing and Slicing ...................................................................................................................... 332
Section 64.1: Basic Slicing ......................................................................................................................................... 332
Section 64.2: Reversing an object ........................................................................................................................... 333
Section 64.3: Slice assignment ................................................................................................................................. 333
Section 64.4: Making a shallow copy of an array .................................................................................................. 333
Section 64.5: Indexing custom classes: __getitem__, __setitem__ and __delitem__ ................................... 334
Section 64.6: Basic Indexing ..................................................................................................................................... 335
Chapter 65: Plotting with Matplotlib .............................................................................................................. 337
Section 65.1: Plots with Common X-axis but dierent Y-axis : Using twinx() ....................................................... 337
Section 65.2: Plots with common Y-axis and dierent X-axis using twiny() ....................................................... 338
Section 65.3: A Simple Plot in Matplotlib ................................................................................................................. 340
Section 65.4: Adding more features to a simple plot : axis labels, title, axis ticks, grid, and legend ................ 341
Section 65.5: Making multiple plots in the same figure by superimposition similar to MATLAB ...................... 342
Section 65.6: Making multiple Plots in the same figure using plot superimposition with separate plot
commands ......................................................................................................................................................... 343
Chapter 66: graph-tool .......................................................................................................................................... 345
Section 66.1: PyDotPlus ............................................................................................................................................. 345
Section 66.2: PyGraphviz .......................................................................................................................................... 345
Chapter 67: Generators ......................................................................................................................................... 347
Section 67.1: Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 347
Section 67.2: Infinite sequences ............................................................................................................................... 349
Section 67.3: Sending objects to a generator ........................................................................................................ 350
Section 67.4: Yielding all values from another iterable ......................................................................................... 351
Section 67.5: Iteration ............................................................................................................................................... 351
Section 67.6: The next() function ............................................................................................................................. 351
Section 67.7: Coroutines ........................................................................................................................................... 352
Section 67.8: Refactoring list-building code ........................................................................................................... 352
Section 67.9: Yield with recursion: recursively listing all files in a directory ........................................................ 353
Section 67.10: Generator expressions ...................................................................................................................... 354
Section 67.11: Using a generator to find Fibonacci Numbers ............................................................................... 354
Section 67.12: Searching ........................................................................................................................................... 354
Section 67.13: Iterating over generators in parallel ............................................................................................... 355
Chapter 68: Reduce ................................................................................................................................................. 356
Section 68.1: Overview .............................................................................................................................................. 356
Section 68.2: Using reduce ....................................................................................................................................... 356
Section 68.3: Cumulative product ............................................................................................................................ 357
Section 68.4: Non short-circuit variant of any/all ................................................................................................. 357
Chapter 69: Map Function .................................................................................................................................... 358
Section 69.1: Basic use of map, itertools.imap and future_builtins.map ............................................................. 358
 Section 69.2: Mapping each value in an iterable ................................................................................................... 358
Section 69.3: Mapping values of dierent iterables .............................................................................................. 359
Section 69.4: Transposing with Map: Using "None" as function argument (python 2.x only) .......................... 361
Section 69.5: Series and Parallel Mapping .............................................................................................................. 361
Chapter 70: Exponentiation ................................................................................................................................ 365
Section 70.1: Exponentiation using builtins: ** and pow() ...................................................................................... 365
Section 70.2: Square root: math.sqrt() and cmath.sqrt ......................................................................................... 365
Section 70.3: Modular exponentiation: pow() with 3 arguments .......................................................................... 366
Section 70.4: Computing large integer roots ......................................................................................................... 366
Section 70.5: Exponentiation using the math module: math.pow() ..................................................................... 367
Section 70.6: Exponential function: math.exp() and cmath.exp() ......................................................................... 368
Section 70.7: Exponential function minus 1: math.expm1() .................................................................................... 368
Section 70.8: Magic methods and exponentiation: builtin, math and cmath ...................................................... 369
Section 70.9: Roots: nth-root with fractional exponents ....................................................................................... 370
Chapter 71: Searching ............................................................................................................................................ 371
Section 71.1: Searching for an element .................................................................................................................... 371
Section 71.2: Searching in custom classes: __contains__ and __iter__ ........................................................... 371
Section 71.3: Getting the index for strings: str.index(), str.rindex() and str.find(), str.rfind() ............................... 372
Section 71.4: Getting the index list and tuples: list.index(), tuple.index() .............................................................. 373
Section 71.5: Searching key(s) for a value in dict ................................................................................................... 373
Section 71.6: Getting the index for sorted sequences: bisect.bisect_left() .......................................................... 374
Section 71.7: Searching nested sequences ............................................................................................................. 374
Chapter 72: Sorting, Minimum and Maximum ............................................................................................ 376
Section 72.1: Make custom classes orderable ........................................................................................................ 376
Section 72.2: Special case: dictionaries ................................................................................................................... 378
Section 72.3: Using the key argument .................................................................................................................... 379
Section 72.4: Default Argument to max, min ......................................................................................................... 379
Section 72.5: Getting a sorted sequence ................................................................................................................ 380
Section 72.6: Extracting N largest or N smallest items from an iterable ............................................................ 380
Section 72.7: Getting the minimum or maximum of several values .................................................................... 381
Section 72.8: Minimum and Maximum of a sequence ........................................................................................... 381
Chapter 73: Counting .............................................................................................................................................. 382
Section 73.1: Counting all occurrence of all items in an iterable: collections.Counter ........................................ 382
Section 73.2: Getting the most common value(-s): collections.Counter.most_common() ................................ 382
Section 73.3: Counting the occurrences of one item in a sequence: list.count() and tuple.count() .................. 382
Section 73.4: Counting the occurrences of a substring in a string: str.count() ................................................... 383
Section 73.5: Counting occurrences in numpy array ............................................................................................ 383
Chapter 74: The Print Function ......................................................................................................................... 384
Section 74.1: Print basics ........................................................................................................................................... 384
Section 74.2: Print parameters ................................................................................................................................ 385
Chapter 75: Regular Expressions (Regex) ................................................................................................... 388
Section 75.1: Matching the beginning of a string ................................................................................................... 388
Section 75.2: Searching ............................................................................................................................................ 389
Section 75.3: Precompiled patterns ......................................................................................................................... 389
Section 75.4: Flags .................................................................................................................................................... 390
Section 75.5: Replacing ............................................................................................................................................. 391
Section 75.6: Find All Non-Overlapping Matches ................................................................................................... 391
Section 75.7: Checking for allowed characters ...................................................................................................... 392
Section 75.8: Splitting a string using regular expressions ..................................................................................... 392
Section 75.9: Grouping .............................................................................................................................................. 392
 Section 75.10: Escaping Special Characters ........................................................................................................... 393
Section 75.11: Match an expression only in specific locations ............................................................................... 394
Section 75.12: Iterating over matches using `re.finditer` ........................................................................................ 395
Chapter 76: Copying data .................................................................................................................................... 396
Section 76.1: Copy a dictionary ................................................................................................................................ 396
Section 76.2: Performing a shallow copy ............................................................................................................... 396
Section 76.3: Performing a deep copy .................................................................................................................... 396
Section 76.4: Performing a shallow copy of a list .................................................................................................. 396
Section 76.5: Copy a set ........................................................................................................................................... 396
Chapter 77: Context Managers (“with” Statement) ............................................................................... 398
Section 77.1: Introduction to context managers and the with statement ............................................................ 398
Section 77.2: Writing your own context manager ................................................................................................. 398
Section 77.3: Writing your own contextmanager using generator syntax ......................................................... 399
Section 77.4: Multiple context managers ................................................................................................................ 400
Section 77.5: Assigning to a target .......................................................................................................................... 400
Section 77.6: Manage Resources ............................................................................................................................. 401
Chapter 78: The __name__ special variable ........................................................................................... 402
Section 78.1: __name__ == '__main__' ................................................................................................................. 402
Section 78.2: Use in logging ..................................................................................................................................... 402
Section 78.3: function_class_or_module.__name__ .......................................................................................... 402
Chapter 79: Checking Path Existence and Permissions ......................................................................... 404
Section 79.1: Perform checks using os.access ........................................................................................................ 404
Chapter 80: Creating Python packages ....................................................................................................... 406
Section 80.1: Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 406
Section 80.2: Uploading to PyPI .............................................................................................................................. 406
Section 80.3: Making package executable ............................................................................................................. 408
Chapter 81: Usage of "pip" module: PyPI Package Manager ............................................................. 410
Section 81.1: Example use of commands ................................................................................................................ 410
Section 81.2: Handling ImportError Exception ........................................................................................................ 410
Section 81.3: Force install .......................................................................................................................................... 411
Chapter 82: pip: PyPI Package Manager ...................................................................................................... 412
Section 82.1: Install Packages .................................................................................................................................. 412
Section 82.2: To list all packages installed using `pip` ........................................................................................... 412
Section 82.3: Upgrade Packages ............................................................................................................................ 412
Section 82.4: Uninstall Packages ............................................................................................................................. 413
Section 82.5: Updating all outdated packages on Linux ...................................................................................... 413
Section 82.6: Updating all outdated packages on Windows ................................................................................ 413
Section 82.7: Create a requirements.txt file of all packages on the system ....................................................... 413
Section 82.8: Using a certain Python version with pip .......................................................................................... 414
Section 82.9: Create a requirements.txt file of packages only in the current virtualenv .................................. 414
Section 82.10: Installing packages not yet on pip as wheels ................................................................................ 415
Chapter 83: Parsing Command Line arguments ...................................................................................... 418
Section 83.1: Hello world in argparse ...................................................................................................................... 418
Section 83.2: Using command line arguments with argv ..................................................................................... 418
Section 83.3: Setting mutually exclusive arguments with argparse .................................................................... 419
Section 83.4: Basic example with docopt ............................................................................................................... 420
Section 83.5: Custom parser error message with argparse ................................................................................. 420
Section 83.6: Conceptual grouping of arguments with argparse.add_argument_group() ............................. 421
Section 83.7: Advanced example with docopt and docopt_dispatch ................................................................. 422
Chapter 84: Subprocess Library ...................................................................................................................... 424
Section 84.1: More flexibility with Popen ................................................................................................................. 424
Section 84.2: Calling External Commands .............................................................................................................. 425
Section 84.3: How to create the command list argument .................................................................................... 425
Chapter 85: setup.py .............................................................................................................................................. 427
Section 85.1: Purpose of setup.py ............................................................................................................................ 427
Section 85.2: Using source control metadata in setup.py .................................................................................... 427
Section 85.3: Adding command line scripts to your python package ................................................................. 428
Section 85.4: Adding installation options ................................................................................................................ 428
Chapter 86: Recursion ............................................................................................................................................ 430
Section 86.1: The What, How, and When of Recursion .......................................................................................... 430
Section 86.2: Tree exploration with recursion ........................................................................................................ 433
Section 86.3: Sum of numbers from 1 to n .............................................................................................................. 434
Section 86.4: Increasing the Maximum Recursion Depth ...................................................................................... 434
Section 86.5: Tail Recursion - Bad Practice ............................................................................................................ 435
Section 86.6: Tail Recursion Optimization Through Stack Introspection ............................................................ 435
Chapter 87: Type Hints .......................................................................................................................................... 437
Section 87.1: Adding types to a function ................................................................................................................. 437
Section 87.2: NamedTuple ....................................................................................................................................... 438
Section 87.3: Generic Types ..................................................................................................................................... 438
Section 87.4: Variables and Attributes .................................................................................................................... 438
Section 87.5: Class Members and Methods ............................................................................................................ 439
Section 87.6: Type hints for keyword arguments .................................................................................................. 439
Chapter 88: Exceptions .......................................................................................................................................... 440
Section 88.1: Catching Exceptions ............................................................................................................................ 440
Section 88.2: Do not catch everything! ................................................................................................................... 440
Section 88.3: Re-raising exceptions ......................................................................................................................... 441
Section 88.4: Catching multiple exceptions ............................................................................................................ 441
Section 88.5: Exception Hierarchy ........................................................................................................................... 442
Section 88.6: Else ....................................................................................................................................................... 444
Section 88.7: Raising Exceptions .............................................................................................................................. 444
Section 88.8: Creating custom exception types ..................................................................................................... 445
Section 88.9: Practical examples of exception handling ....................................................................................... 445
Section 88.10: Exceptions are Objects too .............................................................................................................. 446
Section 88.11: Running clean-up code with finally .................................................................................................. 446
Section 88.12: Chain exceptions with raise from .................................................................................................... 447
Chapter 89: Raise Custom Errors / Exceptions ......................................................................................... 448
Section 89.1: Custom Exception ............................................................................................................................... 448
Section 89.2: Catch custom Exception .................................................................................................................... 448
Chapter 90: Commonwealth Exceptions ....................................................................................................... 450
Section 90.1: Other Errors ......................................................................................................................................... 450
Section 90.2: NameError: name '???' is not defined .............................................................................................. 451
Section 90.3: TypeErrors .......................................................................................................................................... 452
Section 90.4: Syntax Error on good code ............................................................................................................... 453
Section 90.5: IndentationErrors (or indentation SyntaxErrors) ............................................................................ 454
Chapter 91: urllib ....................................................................................................................................................... 456
Section 91.1: HTTP GET .............................................................................................................................................. 456
Section 91.2: HTTP POST .......................................................................................................................................... 456
Section 91.3: Decode received bytes according to content type encoding ........................................................ 457
Chapter 92: Web scraping with Python ......................................................................................................... 458
Section 92.1: Scraping using the Scrapy framework ............................................................................................. 458
Section 92.2: Scraping using Selenium WebDriver ................................................................................................ 458
Section 92.3: Basic example of using requests and lxml to scrape some data ................................................. 459
Section 92.4: Maintaining web-scraping session with requests ........................................................................... 459
Section 92.5: Scraping using BeautifulSoup4 ......................................................................................................... 460
Section 92.6: Simple web content download with urllib.request .......................................................................... 460
Section 92.7: Modify Scrapy user agent ................................................................................................................. 460
Section 92.8: Scraping with curl ............................................................................................................................... 460
Chapter 93: HTML Parsing .................................................................................................................................... 462
Section 93.1: Using CSS selectors in BeautifulSoup ................................................................................................ 462
Section 93.2: PyQuery ............................................................................................................................................... 462
Section 93.3: Locate a text after an element in BeautifulSoup ............................................................................ 463
Chapter 94: Manipulating XML .......................................................................................................................... 464
Section 94.1: Opening and reading using an ElementTree ................................................................................... 464
Section 94.2: Create and Build XML Documents .................................................................................................... 464
Section 94.3: Modifying an XML File ........................................................................................................................ 465
Section 94.4: Searching the XML with XPath .......................................................................................................... 465
Section 94.5: Opening and reading large XML files using iterparse (incremental parsing) ............................. 466
Chapter 95: Python Requests Post .................................................................................................................. 468
Section 95.1: Simple Post .......................................................................................................................................... 468
Section 95.2: Form Encoded Data ........................................................................................................................... 469
Section 95.3: File Upload .......................................................................................................................................... 469
Section 95.4: Responses ........................................................................................................................................... 470
Section 95.5: Authentication ..................................................................................................................................... 470
Section 95.6: Proxies ................................................................................................................................................. 471
Chapter 96: Distribution ........................................................................................................................................ 473
Section 96.1: py2app ................................................................................................................................................. 473
Section 96.2: cx_Freeze ............................................................................................................................................ 474
Chapter 97: Property Objects ............................................................................................................................ 475
Section 97.1: Using the @property decorator for read-write properties ............................................................. 475
Section 97.2: Using the @property decorator ....................................................................................................... 475
Section 97.3: Overriding just a getter, setter or a deleter of a property object ................................................. 476
Section 97.4: Using properties without decorators ................................................................................................ 476
Chapter 98: Overloading ...................................................................................................................................... 479
Section 98.1: Operator overloading ......................................................................................................................... 479
Section 98.2: Magic/Dunder Methods .................................................................................................................... 480
Section 98.3: Container and sequence types ......................................................................................................... 481
Section 98.4: Callable types ..................................................................................................................................... 482
Section 98.5: Handling unimplemented behaviour ................................................................................................ 482
Chapter 99: Polymorphism .................................................................................................................................. 484
Section 99.1: Duck Typing ......................................................................................................................................... 484
Section 99.2: Basic Polymorphism .......................................................................................................................... 484
Chapter 100: Method Overriding ...................................................................................................................... 488
Section 100.1: Basic method overriding ................................................................................................................... 488
Chapter 101: User-Defined Methods ................................................................................................................ 489
Section 101.1: Creating user-defined method objects ............................................................................................ 489
Section 101.2: Turtle example ................................................................................................................................... 490
Chapter 102: String representations of class instances: __str__ and __repr__
methods ........................................................................................................................................................................ 491
Section 102.1: Motivation ........................................................................................................................................... 491
Section 102.2: Both methods implemented, eval-round-trip style __repr__() .................................................. 495
Chapter 103: Debugging ........................................................................................................................................ 496
Section 103.1: Via IPython and ipdb ......................................................................................................................... 496
Section 103.2: The Python Debugger: Step-through Debugging with _pdb_ .................................................... 496
Section 103.3: Remote debugger ............................................................................................................................. 498
Chapter 104: Reading and Writing CSV ........................................................................................................ 499
Section 104.1: Using pandas ..................................................................................................................................... 499
Section 104.2: Writing a TSV file .............................................................................................................................. 499
Chapter 105: Writing to CSV from String or List ...................................................................................... 501
Section 105.1: Basic Write Example .......................................................................................................................... 501
Section 105.2: Appending a String as a newline in a CSV file ............................................................................... 501
Chapter 106: Dynamic code execution with `exec` and `eval` ............................................................. 502
Section 106.1: Executing code provided by untrusted user using exec, eval, or ast.literal_eval ....................... 502
Section 106.2: Evaluating a string containing a Python literal with ast.literal_eval ........................................... 502
Section 106.3: Evaluating statements with exec ..................................................................................................... 502
Section 106.4: Evaluating an expression with eval ................................................................................................. 503
Section 106.5: Precompiling an expression to evaluate it multiple times ............................................................ 503
Section 106.6: Evaluating an expression with eval using custom globals ........................................................... 503
Chapter 107: PyInstaller - Distributing Python Code .............................................................................. 504
Section 107.1: Installation and Setup ........................................................................................................................ 504
Section 107.2: Using Pyinstaller ................................................................................................................................ 504
Section 107.3: Bundling to One Folder ..................................................................................................................... 505
Section 107.4: Bundling to a Single File ................................................................................................................... 505
Chapter 108: Data Visualization with Python ............................................................................................. 506
Section 108.1: Seaborn .............................................................................................................................................. 506
Section 108.2: Matplotlib ........................................................................................................................................... 508
Section 108.3: Plotly ................................................................................................................................................... 509
Section 108.4: MayaVI ............................................................................................................................................... 511
Chapter 109: The Interpreter (Command Line Console) ....................................................................... 513
Section 109.1: Getting general help .......................................................................................................................... 513
Section 109.2: Referring to the last expression ...................................................................................................... 513
Section 109.3: Opening the Python console ............................................................................................................ 514
Section 109.4: The PYTHONSTARTUP variable ...................................................................................................... 514
Section 109.5: Command line arguments ............................................................................................................... 514
Section 109.6: Getting help about an object ........................................................................................................... 515
Chapter 110: *args and **kwargs ....................................................................................................................... 518
Section 110.1: Using **kwargs when writing functions ............................................................................................ 518
Section 110.2: Using *args when writing functions .................................................................................................. 518
Section 110.3: Populating kwarg values with a dictionary ..................................................................................... 519
Section 110.4: Keyword-only and Keyword-required arguments ........................................................................ 519
Section 110.5: Using **kwargs when calling functions ............................................................................................ 519
Section 110.6: **kwargs and default values ............................................................................................................. 519
Section 110.7: Using *args when calling functions .................................................................................................. 520
Chapter 111: Garbage Collection ........................................................................................................................ 521
Section 111.1: Reuse of primitive objects .................................................................................................................. 521
Section 111.2: Eects of the del command .............................................................................................................. 521
Section 111.3: Reference Counting ............................................................................................................................ 522
 Section 111.4: Garbage Collector for Reference Cycles ......................................................................................... 522
Section 111.5: Forcefully deallocating objects ......................................................................................................... 523
Section 111.6: Viewing the refcount of an object ..................................................................................................... 524
Section 111.7: Do not wait for the garbage collection to clean up ........................................................................ 524
Section 111.8: Managing garbage collection ........................................................................................................... 524
Chapter 112: Pickle data serialisation ............................................................................................................. 526
Section 112.1: Using Pickle to serialize and deserialize an object .......................................................................... 526
Section 112.2: Customize Pickled Data .................................................................................................................... 526
Chapter 113: Binary Data ...................................................................................................................................... 528
Section 113.1: Format a list of values into a byte object ........................................................................................ 528
Section 113.2: Unpack a byte object according to a format string ...................................................................... 528
Section 113.3: Packing a structure ............................................................................................................................ 528
Chapter 114: Idioms .................................................................................................................................................. 530
Section 114.1: Dictionary key initializations .............................................................................................................. 530
Section 114.2: Switching variables ............................................................................................................................ 530
Section 114.3: Use truth value testing ...................................................................................................................... 530
Section 114.4: Test for "__main__" to avoid unexpected code execution .......................................................... 531
Chapter 115: Data Serialization .......................................................................................................................... 533
Section 115.1: Serialization using JSON .................................................................................................................... 533
Section 115.2: Serialization using Pickle ................................................................................................................... 533
Chapter 116: Multiprocessing ............................................................................................................................... 535
Section 116.1: Running Two Simple Processes ......................................................................................................... 535
Section 116.2: Using Pool and Map ........................................................................................................................... 535
Chapter 117: Multithreading ................................................................................................................................. 537
Section 117.1: Basics of multithreading .................................................................................................................... 537
Section 117.2: Communicating between threads .................................................................................................... 538
Section 117.3: Creating a worker pool ...................................................................................................................... 539
Section 117.4: Advanced use of multithreads .......................................................................................................... 539
Section 117.5: Stoppable Thread with a while Loop ............................................................................................... 541
Chapter 118: Processes and Threads .............................................................................................................. 542
Section 118.1: Global Interpreter Lock ...................................................................................................................... 542
Section 118.2: Running in Multiple Threads ............................................................................................................. 543
Section 118.3: Running in Multiple Processes .......................................................................................................... 544
Section 118.4: Sharing State Between Threads ....................................................................................................... 544
Section 118.5: Sharing State Between Processes .................................................................................................... 545
Chapter 119: Python concurrency ..................................................................................................................... 546
Section 119.1: The multiprocessing module ............................................................................................................. 546
Section 119.2: The threading module ....................................................................................................................... 547
Section 119.3: Passing data between multiprocessing processes ........................................................................ 547
Chapter 120: Parallel computation .................................................................................................................. 550
Section 120.1: Using the multiprocessing module to parallelise tasks ................................................................. 550
Section 120.2: Using a C-extension to parallelize tasks ........................................................................................ 550
Section 120.3: Using Parent and Children scripts to execute code in parallel .................................................... 550
Section 120.4: Using PyPar module to parallelize .................................................................................................. 551
Chapter 121: Sockets ................................................................................................................................................ 552
Section 121.1: Raw Sockets on Linux ......................................................................................................................... 552
Section 121.2: Sending data via UDP ....................................................................................................................... 552
Section 121.3: Receiving data via UDP ..................................................................................................................... 553
Section 121.4: Sending data via TCP ........................................................................................................................ 553
 Section 121.5: Multi-threaded TCP Socket Server ................................................................................................... 553
Chapter 122: Websockets ...................................................................................................................................... 556
Section 122.1: Simple Echo with aiohttp ................................................................................................................... 556
Section 122.2: Wrapper Class with aiohttp ............................................................................................................. 556
Section 122.3: Using Autobahn as a Websocket Factory ...................................................................................... 557
Chapter 123: Sockets And Message Encryption/Decryption Between Client and Server
............................................................................................................................................................................................ 559
Section 123.1: Server side Implementation .............................................................................................................. 559
Section 123.2: Client side Implementation .............................................................................................................. 561
Chapter 124: Python Networking ..................................................................................................................... 563
Section 124.1: Creating a Simple Http Server .......................................................................................................... 563
Section 124.2: Creating a TCP server ...................................................................................................................... 563
Section 124.3: Creating a UDP Server ..................................................................................................................... 564
Section 124.4: Start Simple HttpServer in a thread and open the browser ......................................................... 564
Section 124.5: The simplest Python socket client-server example ....................................................................... 565
Chapter 125: Python HTTP Server .................................................................................................................... 567
Section 125.1: Running a simple HTTP server ......................................................................................................... 567
Section 125.2: Serving files ........................................................................................................................................ 567
Section 125.3: Basic handling of GET, POST, PUT using BaseHTTPRequestHandler ......................................... 568
Section 125.4: Programmatic API of SimpleHTTPServer ....................................................................................... 569
Chapter 126: Flask .................................................................................................................................................... 571
Section 126.1: Files and Templates ........................................................................................................................... 571
Section 126.2: The basics .......................................................................................................................................... 571
Section 126.3: Routing URLs ..................................................................................................................................... 572
Section 126.4: HTTP Methods ................................................................................................................................... 573
Section 126.5: Jinja Templating ............................................................................................................................... 573
Section 126.6: The Request Object .......................................................................................................................... 574
Chapter 127: Introduction to RabbitMQ using AMQPStorm ................................................................ 576
Section 127.1: How to consume messages from RabbitMQ .................................................................................. 576
Section 127.2: How to publish messages to RabbitMQ ......................................................................................... 577
Section 127.3: How to create a delayed queue in RabbitMQ ................................................................................ 577
Chapter 128: Descriptor ......................................................................................................................................... 580
Section 128.1: Simple descriptor ............................................................................................................................... 580
Section 128.2: Two-way conversions ....................................................................................................................... 581
Chapter 129: tempfile NamedTemporaryFile ............................................................................................. 582
Section 129.1: Create (and write to a) known, persistent temporary file ............................................................. 582
Chapter 130: Input, Subset and Output External Data Files using Pandas ................................. 584
Section 130.1: Basic Code to Import, Subset and Write External Data Files Using Pandas ............................... 584
Chapter 131: Unzipping Files ................................................................................................................................ 586
Section 131.1: Using Python ZipFile.extractall() to decompress a ZIP file ............................................................ 586
Section 131.2: Using Python TarFile.extractall() to decompress a tarball ........................................................... 586
Chapter 132: Working with ZIP archives ........................................................................................................ 587
Section 132.1: Examining Zipfile Contents ............................................................................................................... 587
Section 132.2: Opening Zip Files ............................................................................................................................... 587
Section 132.3: Extracting zip file contents to a directory ....................................................................................... 588
Section 132.4: Creating new archives ...................................................................................................................... 588
Chapter 133: Getting start with GZip .............................................................................................................. 589
Section 133.1: Read and write GNU zip files ............................................................................................................ 589
Chapter 134: Stack ................................................................................................................................................... 590
Section 134.1: Creating a Stack class with a List Object ........................................................................................ 590
Section 134.2: Parsing Parentheses ......................................................................................................................... 591
Chapter 135: Working around the Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) ..................................................... 593
Section 135.1: Multiprocessing.Pool .......................................................................................................................... 593
Section 135.2: Cython nogil: ...................................................................................................................................... 594
Chapter 136: Deployment ..................................................................................................................................... 595
Section 136.1: Uploading a Conda Package ............................................................................................................ 595
Chapter 137: Logging .............................................................................................................................................. 597
Section 137.1: Introduction to Python Logging ........................................................................................................ 597
Section 137.2: Logging exceptions ........................................................................................................................... 598
Chapter 138: Web Server Gateway Interface (WSGI) ............................................................................. 601
Section 138.1: Server Object (Method) ..................................................................................................................... 601
Chapter 139: Python Server Sent Events ...................................................................................................... 602
Section 139.1: Flask SSE ............................................................................................................................................. 602
Section 139.2: Asyncio SSE ........................................................................................................................................ 602
Chapter 140: Alternatives to switch statement from other languages ....................................... 604
Section 140.1: Use what the language oers: the if/else construct ..................................................................... 604
Section 140.2: Use a dict of functions ...................................................................................................................... 604
Section 140.3: Use class introspection ..................................................................................................................... 605
Section 140.4: Using a context manager ................................................................................................................ 606
Chapter 141: List destructuring (aka packing and unpacking) ......................................................... 607
Section 141.1: Destructuring assignment ................................................................................................................. 607
Section 141.2: Packing function arguments ............................................................................................................ 608
Section 141.3: Unpacking function arguments ........................................................................................................ 610
Chapter 142: Accessing Python source code and bytecode .............................................................. 611
Section 142.1: Display the bytecode of a function .................................................................................................. 611
Section 142.2: Display the source code of an object ............................................................................................. 611
Section 142.3: Exploring the code object of a function .......................................................................................... 612
Chapter 143: Mixins .................................................................................................................................................. 613
Section 143.1: Mixin ..................................................................................................................................................... 613
Section 143.2: Overriding Methods in Mixins ........................................................................................................... 614
Chapter 144: Attribute Access ........................................................................................................................... 615
Section 144.1: Basic Attribute Access using the Dot Notation ............................................................................... 615
Section 144.2: Setters, Getters & Properties ............................................................................................................ 615
Chapter 145: ArcPy .................................................................................................................................................. 618
Section 145.1: createDissolvedGDB to create a file gdb on the workspace ........................................................ 618
Section 145.2: Printing one field's value for all rows of feature class in file geodatabase using Search
Cursor ................................................................................................................................................................. 618
Chapter 146: Abstract Base Classes (abc) ................................................................................................... 619
Section 146.1: Setting the ABCMeta metaclass ....................................................................................................... 619
Section 146.2: Why/How to use ABCMeta and @abstractmethod ...................................................................... 619
Chapter 147: Plugin and Extension Classes ................................................................................................. 621
Section 147.1: Mixins ................................................................................................................................................... 621
Section 147.2: Plugins with Customized Classes ..................................................................................................... 622
Chapter 148: Immutable datatypes(int, float, str, tuple and frozensets) .................................. 624
Section 148.1: Individual characters of strings are not assignable ....................................................................... 624
Section 148.2: Tuple's individual members aren't assignable ............................................................................... 624
 Section 148.3: Frozenset's are immutable and not assignable ............................................................................. 624
Chapter 149: Incompatibilities moving from Python 2 to Python 3 ................................................ 625
Section 149.1: Integer Division ................................................................................................................................... 625
Section 149.2: Unpacking Iterables .......................................................................................................................... 626
Section 149.3: Strings: Bytes versus Unicode .......................................................................................................... 628
Section 149.4: Print statement vs. Print function .................................................................................................... 630
Section 149.5: Dierences between range and xrange functions ........................................................................ 631
Section 149.6: Raising and handling Exceptions ..................................................................................................... 632
Section 149.7: Leaked variables in list comprehension .......................................................................................... 634
Section 149.8: True, False and None ........................................................................................................................ 635
Section 149.9: User Input ........................................................................................................................................... 635
Section 149.10: Comparison of dierent types ....................................................................................................... 636
Section 149.11: .next() method on iterators renamed ............................................................................................. 636
Section 149.12: filter(), map() and zip() return iterators instead of sequences ................................................... 637
Section 149.13: Renamed modules ........................................................................................................................... 637
Section 149.14: Removed operators <> and ``, synonymous with != and repr() ................................................... 638
Section 149.15: long vs. int ......................................................................................................................................... 638
Section 149.16: All classes are "new-style classes" in Python 3 ............................................................................ 639
Section 149.17: Reduce is no longer a built-in ......................................................................................................... 640
Section 149.18: Absolute/Relative Imports .............................................................................................................. 640
Section 149.19: map() ................................................................................................................................................ 642
Section 149.20: The round() function tie-breaking and return type .................................................................... 643
Section 149.21: File I/O .............................................................................................................................................. 644
Section 149.22: cmp function removed in Python 3 ............................................................................................... 644
Section 149.23: Octal Constants ............................................................................................................................... 645
Section 149.24: Return value when writing to a file object .................................................................................... 645
Section 149.25: exec statement is a function in Python 3 ...................................................................................... 645
Section 149.26: encode/decode to hex no longer available ................................................................................. 646
Section 149.27: Dictionary method changes .......................................................................................................... 647
Section 149.28: Class Boolean Value ....................................................................................................................... 647
Section 149.29: hasattr function bug in Python 2 ................................................................................................... 648
Chapter 150: 2to3 tool ............................................................................................................................................ 650
Section 150.1: Basic Usage ........................................................................................................................................ 650
Chapter 151: Non-ocial Python implementations ................................................................................ 652
Section 151.1: IronPython ........................................................................................................................................... 652
Section 151.2: Jython ................................................................................................................................................. 652
Section 151.3: Transcrypt .......................................................................................................................................... 653
Chapter 152: Abstract syntax tree ................................................................................................................... 656
Section 152.1: Analyze functions in a python script ................................................................................................ 656
Chapter 153: Unicode and bytes ....................................................................................................................... 658
Section 153.1: Encoding/decoding error handling .................................................................................................. 658
Section 153.2: File I/O ................................................................................................................................................ 658
Section 153.3: Basics .................................................................................................................................................. 659
Chapter 154: Python Serial Communication (pyserial) ......................................................................... 661
Section 154.1: Initialize serial device ......................................................................................................................... 661
Section 154.2: Read from serial port ....................................................................................................................... 661
Section 154.3: Check what serial ports are available on your machine .............................................................. 661
Chapter 155: Neo4j and Cypher using Py2Neo ......................................................................................... 664
Section 155.1: Adding Nodes to Neo4j Graph .......................................................................................................... 664
 Section 155.2: Importing and Authenticating .......................................................................................................... 664
Section 155.3: Adding Relationships to Neo4j Graph ............................................................................................. 664
Section 155.4: Query 1 : Autocomplete on News Titles .......................................................................................... 664
Section 155.5: Query 2 : Get News Articles by Location on a particular date ..................................................... 665
Section 155.6: Cypher Query Samples .................................................................................................................... 665
Chapter 156: Basic Curses with Python .......................................................................................................... 666
Section 156.1: The wrapper() helper function ......................................................................................................... 666
Section 156.2: Basic Invocation Example ................................................................................................................ 666
Chapter 157: Templates in python ................................................................................................................... 667
Section 157.1: Simple data output program using template ................................................................................. 667
Section 157.2: Changing delimiter ............................................................................................................................ 667
Chapter 158: Pillow ................................................................................................................................................... 668
Section 158.1: Read Image File ................................................................................................................................. 668
Section 158.2: Convert files to JPEG ........................................................................................................................ 668
Chapter 159: The pass statement .................................................................................................................... 669
Section 159.1: Ignore an exception ........................................................................................................................... 669
Section 159.2: Create a new Exception that can be caught .................................................................................. 669
Chapter 160: CLI subcommands with precise help output .................................................................. 671
Section 160.1: Native way (no libraries) ................................................................................................................... 671
Section 160.2: argparse (default help formatter) .................................................................................................. 671
Section 160.3: argparse (custom help formatter) .................................................................................................. 672
Chapter 161: Database Access ............................................................................................................................ 674
Section 161.1: SQLite ................................................................................................................................................... 674
Section 161.2: Accessing MySQL database using MySQLdb ................................................................................. 679
Section 161.3: Connection .......................................................................................................................................... 680
Section 161.4: PostgreSQL Database access using psycopg2 .............................................................................. 681
Section 161.5: Oracle database ................................................................................................................................ 682
Section 161.6: Using sqlalchemy ............................................................................................................................... 684
Chapter 162: Connecting Python to SQL Server ....................................................................................... 685
Section 162.1: Connect to Server, Create Table, Query Data ................................................................................ 685
Chapter 163: PostgreSQL ...................................................................................................................................... 686
Section 163.1: Getting Started ................................................................................................................................... 686
Chapter 164: Python and Excel .......................................................................................................................... 687
Section 164.1: Read the excel data using xlrd module ........................................................................................... 687
Section 164.2: Format Excel files with xlsxwriter ..................................................................................................... 687
Section 164.3: Put list data into a Excel's file ........................................................................................................... 688
Section 164.4: OpenPyXL .......................................................................................................................................... 689
Section 164.5: Create excel charts with xlsxwriter .................................................................................................. 689
Chapter 165: Turtle Graphics .............................................................................................................................. 693
Section 165.1: Ninja Twist (Turtle Graphics) ............................................................................................................ 693
Chapter 166: Python Persistence ...................................................................................................................... 694
Section 166.1: Python Persistence ............................................................................................................................ 694
Section 166.2: Function utility for save and load .................................................................................................... 695
Chapter 167: Design Patterns ............................................................................................................................. 696
Section 167.1: Introduction to design patterns and Singleton Pattern ................................................................. 696
Section 167.2: Strategy Pattern ................................................................................................................................ 698
Section 167.3: Proxy ................................................................................................................................................... 699
Chapter 168: hashlib ................................................................................................................................................ 701
 Section 168.1: MD5 hash of a string ......................................................................................................................... 701
Section 168.2: algorithm provided by OpenSSL ..................................................................................................... 702
Chapter 169: Creating a Windows service using Python ....................................................................... 703
Section 169.1: A Python script that can be run as a service .................................................................................. 703
Section 169.2: Running a Flask web application as a service ............................................................................... 704
Chapter 170: Mutable vs Immutable (and Hashable) in Python ....................................................... 706
Section 170.1: Mutable vs Immutable ....................................................................................................................... 706
Section 170.2: Mutable and Immutable as Arguments .......................................................................................... 708
Chapter 171: configparser .................................................................................................................................... 710
Section 171.1: Creating configuration file programmatically ................................................................................. 710
Section 171.2: Basic usage ......................................................................................................................................... 710
Chapter 172: Optical Character Recognition .............................................................................................. 711
Section 172.1: PyTesseract ........................................................................................................................................ 711
Section 172.2: PyOCR ................................................................................................................................................ 711
Chapter 173: Virtual environments .................................................................................................................. 713
Section 173.1: Creating and using a virtual environment ....................................................................................... 713
Section 173.2: Specifying specific python version to use in script on Unix/Linux ............................................... 715
Section 173.3: Creating a virtual environment for a dierent version of python ............................................... 715
Section 173.4: Making virtual environments using Anaconda .............................................................................. 715
Section 173.5: Managing multiple virtual environments with virtualenvwrapper ............................................... 716
Section 173.6: Installing packages in a virtual environment ................................................................................. 717
Section 173.7: Discovering which virtual environment you are using .................................................................. 718
Section 173.8: Checking if running inside a virtual environment .......................................................................... 719
Section 173.9: Using virtualenv with fish shell ......................................................................................................... 719
Chapter 174: Python Virtual Environment - virtualenv ......................................................................... 721
Section 174.1: Installation .......................................................................................................................................... 721
Section 174.2: Usage ................................................................................................................................................. 721
Section 174.3: Install a package in your Virtualenv ............................................................................................... 721
Section 174.4: Other useful virtualenv commands ................................................................................................. 722
Chapter 175: Virtual environment with virtualenvwrapper ................................................................ 724
Section 175.1: Create virtual environment with virtualenvwrapper ...................................................................... 724
Chapter 176: Create virtual environment with virtualenvwrapper in windows ........................ 726
Section 176.1: Virtual environment with virtualenvwrapper for windows ............................................................. 726
Chapter 177: sys ........................................................................................................................................................ 727
Section 177.1: Command line arguments ................................................................................................................ 727
Section 177.2: Script name ........................................................................................................................................ 727
Section 177.3: Standard error stream ...................................................................................................................... 727
Section 177.4: Ending the process prematurely and returning an exit code ....................................................... 727
Chapter 178: ChemPy - python package ...................................................................................................... 728
Section 178.1: Parsing formulae ............................................................................................................................... 728
Section 178.2: Balancing stoichiometry of a chemical reaction ........................................................................... 728
Section 178.3: Balancing reactions .......................................................................................................................... 728
Section 178.4: Chemical equilibria ............................................................................................................................ 729
Section 178.5: Ionic strength ..................................................................................................................................... 729
Section 178.6: Chemical kinetics (system of ordinary dierential equations) .................................................... 729
Chapter 179: pygame .............................................................................................................................................. 731
Section 179.1: Pygame's mixer module .................................................................................................................... 731
Section 179.2: Installing pygame .............................................................................................................................. 732
Chapter 180: Pyglet ................................................................................................................................................. 734
Section 180.1: Installation of Pyglet .......................................................................................................................... 734
Section 180.2: Hello World in Pyglet ........................................................................................................................ 734
Section 180.3: Playing Sound in Pyglet .................................................................................................................... 734
Section 180.4: Using Pyglet for OpenGL ................................................................................................................. 734
Section 180.5: Drawing Points Using Pyglet and OpenGL ..................................................................................... 734
Chapter 181: Audio .................................................................................................................................................... 736
Section 181.1: Working with WAV files ...................................................................................................................... 736
Section 181.2: Convert any soundfile with python and mpeg ............................................................................ 736
Section 181.3: Playing Windows' beeps .................................................................................................................... 736
Section 181.4: Audio With Pyglet .............................................................................................................................. 737
Chapter 182: pyaudio .............................................................................................................................................. 738
Section 182.1: Callback Mode Audio I/O .................................................................................................................. 738
Section 182.2: Blocking Mode Audio I/O ................................................................................................................. 739
Chapter 183: shelve .................................................................................................................................................. 741
Section 183.1: Creating a new Shelf .......................................................................................................................... 741
Section 183.2: Sample code for shelve .................................................................................................................... 742
Section 183.3: To summarize the interface (key is a string, data is an arbitrary object): .................................. 742
Section 183.4: Write-back ......................................................................................................................................... 742
Chapter 184: IoT Programming with Python and Raspberry PI ....................................................... 744
Section 184.1: Example - Temperature sensor ........................................................................................................ 744
Chapter 185: kivy - Cross-platform Python Framework for NUI Development ....................... 748
Section 185.1: First App .............................................................................................................................................. 748
Chapter 186: Pandas Transform: Preform operations on groups and concatenate the
results ............................................................................................................................................................................. 750
Section 186.1: Simple transform ............................................................................................................................... 750
Section 186.2: Multiple results per group ................................................................................................................ 751
Chapter 187: Similarities in syntax, Dierences in meaning: Python vs. JavaScript ............. 752
Section 187.1: `in` with lists ......................................................................................................................................... 752
Chapter 188: Call Python from C# ................................................................................................................... 753
Section 188.1: Python script to be called by C# application .................................................................................. 753
Section 188.2: C# code calling Python script .......................................................................................................... 753
Chapter 189: ctypes ................................................................................................................................................. 755
Section 189.1: ctypes arrays ..................................................................................................................................... 755
Section 189.2: Wrapping functions for ctypes ........................................................................................................ 755
Section 189.3: Basic usage ........................................................................................................................................ 756
Section 189.4: Common pitfalls ................................................................................................................................ 756
Section 189.5: Basic ctypes object ........................................................................................................................... 757
Section 189.6: Complex usage .................................................................................................................................. 758
Chapter 190: Writing extensions ........................................................................................................................ 760
Section 190.1: Hello World with C Extension ............................................................................................................ 760
Section 190.2: C Extension Using c++ and Boost .................................................................................................... 760
Section 190.3: Passing an open file to C Extensions .............................................................................................. 762
Chapter 191: Python Lex-Yacc ............................................................................................................................. 763
Section 191.1: Getting Started with PLY .................................................................................................................... 763
Section 191.2: The "Hello, World!" of PLY - A Simple Calculator ............................................................................ 763
Section 191.3: Part 1: Tokenizing Input with Lex ....................................................................................................... 765
Section 191.4: Part 2: Parsing Tokenized Input with Yacc ...................................................................................... 768
Chapter 192: Unit Testing ...................................................................................................................................... 772
Section 192.1: Test Setup and Teardown within a unittest.TestCase .................................................................... 772
Section 192.2: Asserting on Exceptions ................................................................................................................... 772
Section 192.3: Testing Exceptions ............................................................................................................................ 773
Section 192.4: Choosing Assertions Within Unittests ............................................................................................. 774
Section 192.5: Unit tests with pytest ........................................................................................................................ 775
Section 192.6: Mocking functions with unittest.mock.create_autospec ............................................................... 778
Chapter 193: py.test ................................................................................................................................................. 780
Section 193.1: Setting up py.test ............................................................................................................................... 780
Section 193.2: Intro to Test Fixtures ......................................................................................................................... 780
Section 193.3: Failing Tests ....................................................................................................................................... 783
Chapter 194: Profiling ............................................................................................................................................. 785
Section 194.1: %%timeit and %timeit in IPython ...................................................................................................... 785
Section 194.2: Using cProfile (Preferred Profiler) ................................................................................................... 785
Section 194.3: timeit() function ................................................................................................................................. 785
Section 194.4: timeit command line ......................................................................................................................... 786
Section 194.5: line_profiler in command line .......................................................................................................... 786
Chapter 195: Python speed of program ....................................................................................................... 788
Section 195.1: Deque operations .............................................................................................................................. 788
Section 195.2: Algorithmic Notations ....................................................................................................................... 788
Section 195.3: Notation .............................................................................................................................................. 789
Section 195.4: List operations ................................................................................................................................... 790
Section 195.5: Set operations ................................................................................................................................... 790
Chapter 196: Performance optimization ....................................................................................................... 792
Section 196.1: Code profiling ..................................................................................................................................... 792
Chapter 197: Security and Cryptography .................................................................................................... 794
Section 197.1: Secure Password Hashing ................................................................................................................. 794
Section 197.2: Calculating a Message Digest ......................................................................................................... 794
Section 197.3: Available Hashing Algorithms .......................................................................................................... 794
Section 197.4: File Hashing ....................................................................................................................................... 795
Section 197.5: Generating RSA signatures using pycrypto ................................................................................... 795
Section 197.6: Asymmetric RSA encryption using pycrypto ................................................................................. 796
Section 197.7: Symmetric encryption using pycrypto ............................................................................................ 797
Chapter 198: Secure Shell Connection in Python ...................................................................................... 798
Section 198.1: ssh connection ................................................................................................................................... 798
Chapter 199: Python Anti-Patterns .................................................................................................................. 799
Section 199.1: Overzealous except clause ............................................................................................................... 799
Section 199.2: Looking before you leap with processor-intensive function ........................................................ 799
Chapter 200: Common Pitfalls ........................................................................................................................... 802
Section 200.1: List multiplication and common references .................................................................................. 802
Section 200.2: Mutable default argument .............................................................................................................. 805
Section 200.3: Changing the sequence you are iterating over ............................................................................ 806
Section 200.4: Integer and String identity .............................................................................................................. 809
Section 200.5: Dictionaries are unordered ............................................................................................................. 810
Section 200.6: Variable leaking in list comprehensions and for loops ................................................................ 811
Section 200.7: Chaining of or operator ................................................................................................................... 811
Section 200.8: sys.argv[0] is the name of the file being executed ...................................................................... 812
Section 200.9: Accessing int literals' attributes ...................................................................................................... 812
Section 200.10: Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) and blocking threads ................................................................... 813
 Section 200.11: Multiple return .................................................................................................................................. 814
Section 200.12: Pythonic JSON keys ....................................................................................................................... 814
Chapter 201: Hidden Features ............................................................................................................................ 816
Section 201.1: Operator Overloading ....................................................................................................................... 816
Credits ............................................................................................................................................................................ 817
You may also like ...................................................................................................................................................... 831
About

Please feel free to share this PDF with anyone for free,
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GoalKicker.com – Python® Notes for Professionals 1

Chapter 1: Getting started with Python
Language
Python 3.x
Version Release Date
3.8 2020-04-29
3.7 2018-06-27
3.6 2016-12-23
3.5 2015-09-13
3.4 2014-03-17
3.3 2012-09-29
3.2 2011-02-20
3.1 2009-06-26
3.0 2008-12-03
Python 2.x
Version Release Date
2.7 2010-07-03
2.6 2008-10-02
2.5 2006-09-19
2.4 2004-11-30
2.3 2003-07-29
2.2 2001-12-21
2.1 2001-04-15
2.0 2000-10-16

Section 1.1: Getting Started

Python is a widely used high-level programming language for general-purpose programming, created by Guido van
Rossum and first released in 1991. Python features a dynamic type system and automatic memory management
and supports multiple programming paradigms, including object-oriented, imperative, functional programming,
and procedural styles. It has a large and comprehensive standard library.

Two major versions of Python are currently in active use:

Python 3.x is the current version and is under active development.

Python 2.x is the legacy version and will receive only security updates until 2020. No new features will be
implemented. Note that many projects still use Python 2, although migrating to Python 3 is getting easier.

You can download and install either version of Python here. See Python 3 vs. Python 2 for a comparison between
them. In addition, some third-parties offer re-packaged versions of Python that add commonly used libraries and
other features to ease setup for common use cases, such as math, data analysis or scientific use. See the list at the
official site.

Verify if Python is installed

To confirm that Python was installed correctly, you can verify that by running the following command in your
favorite terminal (If you are using Windows OS, you need to add path of python to the environment variable before
using it in command prompt):

GoalKicker.com – Python® Notes for Professionals 2

$ python --version

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.0

If you have Python 3 installed, and it is your default version (see Troubleshooting for more details) you should see
something like this:

$ python --version
Python 3.6.0

Python 2.x Version ≤ 2.7

If you have Python 2 installed, and it is your default version (see Troubleshooting for more details) you should see
something like this:

$ python --version
Python 2.7.13

If you have installed Python 3, but $ python --version outputs a Python 2 version, you also have Python 2
installed. This is often the case on MacOS, and many Linux distributions. Use $ python3 instead to explicitly use the
Python 3 interpreter.

Hello, World in Python using IDLE

IDLE is a simple editor for Python, that comes bundled with Python.

How to create Hello, World program in IDLE

Open IDLE on your system of choice.

In older versions of Windows, it can be found at All Programs under the Windows menu.
In Windows 8+, search for IDLE or find it in the apps that are present in your system.
On Unix-based (including Mac) systems you can open it from the shell by typing $ idle
python_file.py.
It will open a shell with options along the top.

In the shell, there is a prompt of three right angle brackets:

>>>

Now write the following code in the prompt:

>>> print("Hello, World")

Hit Enter .

>>> print("Hello, World")

Hello, World

Hello World Python file

Create a new file hello.py that contains the following line:

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.0

print('Hello, World')

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.6

GoalKicker.com – Python® Notes for Professionals 3

You can use the Python 3 print function in Python 2 with the following import statement:

from __future__ import print_function

Python 2 has a number of functionalities that can be optionally imported from Python 3 using the __future__
module, as discussed here.

Python 2.x Version ≤ 2.7

If using Python 2, you may also type the line below. Note that this is not valid in Python 3 and thus not
recommended because it reduces cross-version code compatibility.

print 'Hello, World'

In your terminal, navigate to the directory containing the file hello.py.

Type python hello.py, then hit the Enter key.

$ python hello.py
Hello, World

You should see Hello, World printed to the console.

You can also substitute hello.py with the path to your file. For example, if you have the file in your home directory
and your user is "user" on Linux, you can type python /home/user/hello.py.

Launch an interactive Python shell

By executing (running) the python command in your terminal, you are presented with an interactive Python shell.
This is also known as the Python Interpreter or a REPL (for 'Read Evaluate Print Loop').

$ python
Python 2.7.12 (default, Jun 28 2016, 08:46:01)
[GCC 6.1.1 20160602] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> print 'Hello, World'
Hello, World
>>>

If you want to run Python 3 from your terminal, execute the command python3.

$ python3
Python 3.6.0 (default, Jan 13 2017, 00:00:00)
[GCC 6.1.1 20160602] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> print('Hello, World')
Hello, World
>>>

Alternatively, start the interactive prompt and load file with python -i <file.py>.

In command line, run:

$ python -i hello.py
"Hello World"
>>>

GoalKicker.com – Python® Notes for Professionals 4

There are multiple ways to close the Python shell:

>>> exit()

or

>>> quit()

Alternatively, CTRL + D will close the shell and put you back on your terminal's command line.

If you want to cancel a command you're in the middle of typing and get back to a clean command prompt, while
staying inside the Interpreter shell, use CTRL + C .

Try an interactive Python shell online.

Other Online Shells

Various websites provide online access to Python shells.

Online shells may be useful for the following purposes:

Run a small code snippet from a machine which lacks python installation(smartphones, tablets etc).
Learn or teach basic Python.
Solve online judge problems.

Examples:

Disclaimer: documentation author(s) are not affiliated with any resources listed below.

https://www.python.org/shell/ - The online Python shell hosted by the official Python website.
https://ideone.com/ - Widely used on the Net to illustrate code snippet behavior.
https://repl.it/languages/python3 - Powerful and simple online compiler, IDE and interpreter. Code, compile,
and run code in Python.
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/execute_python_online.php - Full-featured UNIX shell, and a user-friendly
project explorer.
http://rextester.com/l/python3_online_compiler - Simple and easy to use IDE which shows execution time

Run commands as a string

Python can be passed arbitrary code as a string in the shell:

$ python -c 'print("Hello, World")'

Hello, World

This can be useful when concatenating the results of scripts together in the shell.

Shells and Beyond

Package Management - The PyPA recommended tool for installing Python packages is PIP. To install, on your
command line execute pip install <the package name>. For instance, pip install numpy. (Note: On windows
you must add pip to your PATH environment variables. To avoid this, use python -m pip install <the package
name>)

Shells - So far, we have discussed different ways to run code using Python's native interactive shell. Shells use

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Python's interpretive power for experimenting with code real-time. Alternative shells include IDLE - a pre-bundled
GUI, IPython - known for extending the interactive experience, etc.

Programs - For long-term storage you can save content to .py files and edit/execute them as scripts or programs
with external tools e.g. shell, IDEs (such as PyCharm), Jupyter notebooks, etc. Intermediate users may use these
tools; however, the methods discussed here are sufficient for getting started.

Python tutor allows you to step through Python code so you can visualize how the program will flow, and helps you
to understand where your program went wrong.

PEP8 defines guidelines for formatting Python code. Formatting code well is important so you can quickly read what
the code does.

Section 1.2: Creating variables and assigning values

To create a variable in Python, all you need to do is specify the variable name, and then assign a value to it.

<variable name> = <value>

Python uses = to assign values to variables. There's no need to declare a variable in advance (or to assign a data
type to it), assigning a value to a variable itself declares and initializes the variable with that value. There's no way to
declare a variable without assigning it an initial value.

# Integer
a = 2
print(a)
# Output: 2

# Integer
b = 9223372036854775807
print(b)
# Output: 9223372036854775807

# Floating point
pi = 3.14
print(pi)
# Output: 3.14

# String
c = 'A'
print(c)
# Output: A

# String
name = 'John Doe'
print(name)
# Output: John Doe

# Boolean
q = True
print(q)
# Output: True

# Empty value or null data type

x = None
print(x)
# Output: None

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Variable assignment works from left to right. So the following will give you an syntax error.

0 = x
=> Output: SyntaxError: can't assign to literal

You can not use python's keywords as a valid variable name. You can see the list of keyword by:

import keyword
print(keyword.kwlist)

Rules for variable naming:

1. Variables names must start with a letter or an underscore.

x = True # valid
_y = True # valid

9x = False # starts with numeral

=> SyntaxError: invalid syntax

$y = False # starts with symbol

=> SyntaxError: invalid syntax

2. The remainder of your variable name may consist of letters, numbers and underscores.

has_0_in_it = "Still Valid"

3. Names are case sensitive.

x = 9
y = X*5
=>NameError: name 'X' is not defined

Even though there's no need to specify a data type when declaring a variable in Python, while allocating the
necessary area in memory for the variable, the Python interpreter automatically picks the most suitable built-in
type for it:

a = 2
print(type(a))
# Output: <type 'int'>

b = 9223372036854775807
print(type(b))
# Output: <type 'int'>

pi = 3.14
print(type(pi))
# Output: <type 'float'>

c = 'A'
print(type(c))
# Output: <type 'str'>

name = 'John Doe'

print(type(name))
# Output: <type 'str'>

q = True
print(type(q))

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# Output: <type 'bool'>

x = None
print(type(x))
# Output: <type 'NoneType'>

Now you know the basics of assignment, let's get this subtlety about assignment in python out of the way.

When you use = to do an assignment operation, what's on the left of = is a name for the object on the right. Finally,
what = does is assign the reference of the object on the right to the name on the left.

That is:

a_name = an_object # "a_name" is now a name for the reference to the object "an_object"

So, from many assignment examples above, if we pick pi = 3.14, then pi is a name (not the name, since an object
can have multiple names) for the object 3.14. If you don't understand something below, come back to this point
and read this again! Also, you can take a look at this for a better understanding.

You can assign multiple values to multiple variables in one line. Note that there must be the same number of
arguments on the right and left sides of the = operator:

a, b, c = 1, 2, 3
print(a, b, c)
# Output: 1 2 3

a, b, c = 1, 2
=> Traceback (most recent call last):
=> File "name.py", line N, in <module>
=> a, b, c = 1, 2
=> ValueError: need more than 2 values to unpack

a, b = 1, 2, 3
=> Traceback (most recent call last):
=> File "name.py", line N, in <module>
=> a, b = 1, 2, 3
=> ValueError: too many values to unpack

The error in last example can be obviated by assigning remaining values to equal number of arbitrary variables.
This dummy variable can have any name, but it is conventional to use the underscore (_) for assigning unwanted
values:

a, b, _ = 1, 2, 3
print(a, b)
# Output: 1, 2

Note that the number of _ and number of remaining values must be equal. Otherwise 'too many values to unpack
error' is thrown as above:

a, b, _ = 1,2,3,4
=>Traceback (most recent call last):
=>File "name.py", line N, in <module>
=>a, b, _ = 1,2,3,4
=>ValueError: too many values to unpack (expected 3)

You can also assign a single value to several variables simultaneously.

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a = b = c = 1
print(a, b, c)
# Output: 1 1 1

When using such cascading assignment, it is important to note that all three variables a, b and c refer to the same
object in memory, an int object with the value of 1. In other words, a, b and c are three different names given to the
same int object. Assigning a different object to one of them afterwards doesn't change the others, just as expected:

a = b = c = 1 # all three names a, b and c refer to same int object with value 1
print(a, b, c)
# Output: 1 1 1
b = 2 # b now refers to another int object, one with a value of 2
print(a, b, c)
# Output: 1 2 1 # so output is as expected.

The above is also true for mutable types (like list, dict, etc.) just as it is true for immutable types (like int, string,
tuple, etc.):

x = y = [7, 8, 9] # x and y refer to the same list object just created, [7, 8, 9]
x = [13, 8, 9] # x now refers to a different list object just created, [13, 8, 9]
print(y) # y still refers to the list it was first assigned
# Output: [7, 8, 9]

So far so good. Things are a bit different when it comes to modifying the object (in contrast to assigning the name to
a different object, which we did above) when the cascading assignment is used for mutable types. Take a look
below, and you will see it first hand:

x = y = [7, 8, 9] # x and y are two different names for the same list object just created, [7,
8, 9]
x[0] = 13 # we are updating the value of the list [7, 8, 9] through one of its names, x
in this case
print(y) # printing the value of the list using its other name
# Output: [13, 8, 9] # hence, naturally the change is reflected

Nested lists are also valid in python. This means that a list can contain another list as an element.

x = [1, 2, [3, 4, 5], 6, 7] # this is nested list

print x[2]
# Output: [3, 4, 5]
print x[2][1]
# Output: 4

Lastly, variables in Python do not have to stay the same type as which they were first defined -- you can simply use
= to assign a new value to a variable, even if that value is of a different type.

a = 2
print(a)
# Output: 2

a = "New value"
print(a)
# Output: New value

If this bothers you, think about the fact that what's on the left of = is just a name for an object. First you call the int
object with value 2 a, then you change your mind and decide to give the name a to a string object, having value
'New value'. Simple, right?

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Section 1.3: Block Indentation
Python uses indentation to define control and loop constructs. This contributes to Python's readability, however, it
requires the programmer to pay close attention to the use of whitespace. Thus, editor miscalibration could result in
code that behaves in unexpected ways.

Python uses the colon symbol (:) and indentation for showing where blocks of code begin and end (If you come
from another language, do not confuse this with somehow being related to the ternary operator). That is, blocks in
Python, such as functions, loops, if clauses and other constructs, have no ending identifiers. All blocks start with a
colon and then contain the indented lines below it.

For example:

def my_function(): # This is a function definition. Note the colon (:)

a = 2 # This line belongs to the function because it's indented
return a # This line also belongs to the same function
print(my_function()) # This line is OUTSIDE the function block

or

if a > b: # If block starts here

print(a) # This is part of the if block
else: # else must be at the same level as if
print(b) # This line is part of the else block

Blocks that contain exactly one single-line statement may be put on the same line, though this form is generally not
considered good style:

if a > b: print(a)
else: print(b)

Attempting to do this with more than a single statement will not work:

if x > y: y = x
print(y) # IndentationError: unexpected indent

if x > y: while y != z: y -= 1 # SyntaxError: invalid syntax

An empty block causes an IndentationError. Use pass (a command that does nothing) when you have a block with
no content:

def will_be_implemented_later():
pass

Spaces vs. Tabs

In short: always use 4 spaces for indentation.

Using tabs exclusively is possible but PEP 8, the style guide for Python code, states that spaces are preferred.

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.0

Python 3 disallows mixing the use of tabs and spaces for indentation. In such case a compile-time error is
generated: Inconsistent use of tabs and spaces in indentation and the program will not run.

Python 2.x Version ≤ 2.7

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Python 2 allows mixing tabs and spaces in indentation; this is strongly discouraged. The tab character completes
the previous indentation to be a multiple of 8 spaces. Since it is common that editors are configured to show tabs
as multiple of 4 spaces, this can cause subtle bugs.

Citing PEP 8:

When invoking the Python 2 command line interpreter with the -t option, it issues warnings about code
that illegally mixes tabs and spaces. When using -tt these warnings become errors. These options are
highly recommended!

Many editors have "tabs to spaces" configuration. When configuring the editor, one should differentiate between
the tab character ('\t') and the Tab key.

The tab character should be configured to show 8 spaces, to match the language semantics - at least in cases
when (accidental) mixed indentation is possible. Editors can also automatically convert the tab character to
spaces.
However, it might be helpful to configure the editor so that pressing the Tab key will insert 4 spaces,
instead of inserting a tab character.

Python source code written with a mix of tabs and spaces, or with non-standard number of indentation spaces can
be made pep8-conformant using autopep8. (A less powerful alternative comes with most Python installations:
reindent.py)

Section 1.4: Datatypes

Built-in Types
Booleans

bool: A boolean value of either True or False. Logical operations like and, or, not can be performed on booleans.

x or y # if x is False then y otherwise x

x and y # if x is False then x otherwise y
not x # if x is True then False, otherwise True

In Python 2.x and in Python 3.x, a boolean is also an int. The bool type is a subclass of the int type and True and
False are its only instances:

issubclass(bool, int) # True

isinstance(True, bool) # True

isinstance(False, bool) # True

If boolean values are used in arithmetic operations, their integer values (1 and 0 for True and False) will be used to
return an integer result:

True + False == 1 # 1 + 0 == 1
True * True == 1 # 1 * 1 == 1

Numbers

int: Integer number

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 a = 2
b = 100
c = 123456789
d = 38563846326424324

Integers in Python are of arbitrary sizes.

Note: in older versions of Python, a long type was available and this was distinct from int. The two have
been unified.

float: Floating point number; precision depends on the implementation and system architecture, for
CPython the float datatype corresponds to a C double.

a = 2.0
b = 100.e0
c = 123456789.e1

complex: Complex numbers

a = 2 + 1j
b = 100 + 10j

The <, <=, > and >= operators will raise a TypeError exception when any operand is a complex number.

Strings
Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.0

str: a unicode string. The type of 'hello'

bytes: a byte string. The type of b'hello'

Python 2.x Version ≤ 2.7

str: a byte string. The type of 'hello'

bytes: synonym for str
unicode: a unicode string. The type of u'hello'

Sequences and collections

Python differentiates between ordered sequences and unordered collections (such as set and dict).

strings (str, bytes, unicode) are sequences

reversed: A reversed order of str with reversed function

a = reversed('hello')

tuple: An ordered collection of n values of any type (n >= 0).

a = (1, 2, 3)
b = ('a', 1, 'python', (1, 2))
b[2] = 'something else' # returns a TypeError

Supports indexing; immutable; hashable if all its members are hashable

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 list: An ordered collection of n values (n >= 0)

a = [1, 2, 3]
b = ['a', 1, 'python', (1, 2), [1, 2]]
b[2] = 'something else' # allowed

Not hashable; mutable.

set: An unordered collection of unique values. Items must be hashable.

a = {1, 2, 'a'}

dict: An unordered collection of unique key-value pairs; keys must be hashable.

a = {1: 'one',
2: 'two'}

b = {'a': [1, 2, 3],

'b': 'a string'}

An object is hashable if it has a hash value which never changes during its lifetime (it needs a __hash__()
method), and can be compared to other objects (it needs an __eq__() method). Hashable objects which
compare equality must have the same hash value.

Built-in constants

In conjunction with the built-in datatypes there are a small number of built-in constants in the built-in namespace:

True: The true value of the built-in type bool

False: The false value of the built-in type bool
None: A singleton object used to signal that a value is absent.
Ellipsis or ...: used in core Python3+ anywhere and limited usage in Python2.7+ as part of array notation.
numpy and related packages use this as a 'include everything' reference in arrays.
NotImplemented: a singleton used to indicate to Python that a special method doesn't support the specific
arguments, and Python will try alternatives if available.

a = None # No value will be assigned. Any valid datatype can be assigned later

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.0

None doesn't have any natural ordering. Using ordering comparison operators (<, <=, >=, >) isn't supported anymore
and will raise a TypeError.

Python 2.x Version ≤ 2.7

None is always less than any number (None < -32 evaluates to True).

Testing the type of variables

In python, we can check the datatype of an object using the built-in function type.

a = '123'
print(type(a))

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# Out: <class 'str'>
b = 123
print(type(b))
# Out: <class 'int'>

In conditional statements it is possible to test the datatype with isinstance. However, it is usually not encouraged
to rely on the type of the variable.

i = 7
if isinstance(i, int):
i += 1
elif isinstance(i, str):
i = int(i)
i += 1

For information on the differences between type() and isinstance() read: Differences between isinstance and
type in Python

To test if something is of NoneType:

x = None
if x is None:
print('Not a surprise, I just defined x as None.')

Converting between datatypes

You can perform explicit datatype conversion.

For example, '123' is of str type and it can be converted to integer using int function.

a = '123'
b = int(a)

Converting from a float string such as '123.456' can be done using float function.

a = '123.456'
b = float(a)
c = int(a) # ValueError: invalid literal for int() with base 10: '123.456'
d = int(b) # 123

You can also convert sequence or collection types

a = 'hello'
list(a) # ['h', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o']
set(a) # {'o', 'e', 'l', 'h'}
tuple(a) # ('h', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o')

Explicit string type at definition of literals

With one letter labels just in front of the quotes you can tell what type of string you want to define.

b'foo bar': results bytes in Python 3, str in Python 2

u'foo bar': results str in Python 3, unicode in Python 2
'foo bar': results str
r'foo bar': results so called raw string, where escaping special characters is not necessary, everything is
taken verbatim as you typed

normal = 'foo\nbar' # foo

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 # bar
escaped = 'foo\\nbar' # foo\nbar
raw = r'foo\nbar' # foo\nbar

Mutable and Immutable Data Types

An object is called mutable if it can be changed. For example, when you pass a list to some function, the list can be
changed:

def f(m):
m.append(3) # adds a number to the list. This is a mutation.

x = [1, 2]
f(x)
x == [1, 2] # False now, since an item was added to the list

An object is called immutable if it cannot be changed in any way. For example, integers are immutable, since there's
no way to change them:

def bar():
x = (1, 2)
g(x)
x == (1, 2) # Will always be True, since no function can change the object (1, 2)

Note that variables themselves are mutable, so we can reassign the variable x, but this does not change the object
that x had previously pointed to. It only made x point to a new object.

Data types whose instances are mutable are called mutable data types, and similarly for immutable objects and
datatypes.

Examples of immutable Data Types:

int, long, float, complex

str
bytes
tuple
frozenset

Examples of mutable Data Types:

bytearray
list
set
dict

Section 1.5: Collection Types

There are a number of collection types in Python. While types such as int and str hold a single value, collection
types hold multiple values.

Lists

The list type is probably the most commonly used collection type in Python. Despite its name, a list is more like an
array in other languages, mostly JavaScript. In Python, a list is merely an ordered collection of valid Python values. A
list can be created by enclosing values, separated by commas, in square brackets:

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int_list = [1, 2, 3]
string_list = ['abc', 'defghi']

A list can be empty:

empty_list = []

The elements of a list are not restricted to a single data type, which makes sense given that Python is a dynamic
language:

mixed_list = [1, 'abc', True, 2.34, None]

A list can contain another list as its element:

nested_list = [['a', 'b', 'c'], [1, 2, 3]]

The elements of a list can be accessed via an index, or numeric representation of their position. Lists in Python are
zero-indexed meaning that the first element in the list is at index 0, the second element is at index 1 and so on:

names = ['Alice', 'Bob', 'Craig', 'Diana', 'Eric']

print(names[0]) # Alice
print(names[2]) # Craig

Indices can also be negative which means counting from the end of the list (-1 being the index of the last element).
So, using the list from the above example:

print(names[-1]) # Eric
print(names[-4]) # Bob

Lists are mutable, so you can change the values in a list:

names[0] = 'Ann'
print(names)
# Outputs ['Ann', 'Bob', 'Craig', 'Diana', 'Eric']

Besides, it is possible to add and/or remove elements from a list:

Append object to end of list with L.append(object), returns None.

names = ['Alice', 'Bob', 'Craig', 'Diana', 'Eric']

names.append("Sia")
print(names)
# Outputs ['Alice', 'Bob', 'Craig', 'Diana', 'Eric', 'Sia']

Add a new element to list at a specific index. L.insert(index, object)

names.insert(1, "Nikki")
print(names)
# Outputs ['Alice', 'Nikki', 'Bob', 'Craig', 'Diana', 'Eric', 'Sia']

Remove the first occurrence of a value with L.remove(value), returns None

names.remove("Bob")
print(names) # Outputs ['Alice', 'Nikki', 'Craig', 'Diana', 'Eric', 'Sia']

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Get the index in the list of the first item whose value is x. It will show an error if there is no such item.

name.index("Alice")
0

Count length of list

len(names)
6

count occurrence of any item in list

a = [1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4]
a.count(1)
3

Reverse the list

a.reverse()
[4, 3, 2, 1, 1, 1]
# or
a[::-1]
[4, 3, 2, 1, 1, 1]

Remove and return item at index (defaults to the last item) with L.pop([index]), returns the item

names.pop() # Outputs 'Sia'

You can iterate over the list elements like below:

for element in my_list:

print (element)

Tuples

A tuple is similar to a list except that it is fixed-length and immutable. So the values in the tuple cannot be changed
nor the values be added to or removed from the tuple. Tuples are commonly used for small collections of values
that will not need to change, such as an IP address and port. Tuples are represented with parentheses instead of
square brackets:

ip_address = ('10.20.30.40', 8080)

The same indexing rules for lists also apply to tuples. Tuples can also be nested and the values can be any valid
Python valid.

A tuple with only one member must be defined (note the comma) this way:

one_member_tuple = ('Only member',)

or

one_member_tuple = 'Only member', # No brackets

or just using tuple syntax

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one_member_tuple = tuple(['Only member'])

Dictionaries

A dictionary in Python is a collection of key-value pairs. The dictionary is surrounded by curly braces. Each pair is
separated by a comma and the key and value are separated by a colon. Here is an example:

state_capitals = {
'Arkansas': 'Little Rock',
'Colorado': 'Denver',
'California': 'Sacramento',
'Georgia': 'Atlanta'
}

To get a value, refer to it by its key:

ca_capital = state_capitals['California']

You can also get all of the keys in a dictionary and then iterate over them:

for k in state_capitals.keys():
print('{} is the capital of {}'.format(state_capitals[k], k))

Dictionaries strongly resemble JSON syntax. The native json module in the Python standard library can be used to
convert between JSON and dictionaries.

set

A set is a collection of elements with no repeats and without insertion order but sorted order. They are used in
situations where it is only important that some things are grouped together, and not what order they were
included. For large groups of data, it is much faster to check whether or not an element is in a set than it is to do
the same for a list.

Defining a set is very similar to defining a dictionary:

first_names = {'Adam', 'Beth', 'Charlie'}

Or you can build a set using an existing list:

my_list = [1,2,3]
my_set = set(my_list)

Check membership of the set using in:

if name in first_names:
print(name)

You can iterate over a set exactly like a list, but remember: the values will be in an arbitrary, implementation-
defined order.

defaultdict

A defaultdict is a dictionary with a default value for keys, so that keys for which no value has been explicitly
defined can be accessed without errors. defaultdict is especially useful when the values in the dictionary are
collections (lists, dicts, etc) in the sense that it does not need to be initialized every time when a new key is used.

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A defaultdict will never raise a KeyError. Any key that does not exist gets the default value returned.

For example, consider the following dictionary

>>> state_capitals = {
'Arkansas': 'Little Rock',
'Colorado': 'Denver',
'California': 'Sacramento',
'Georgia': 'Atlanta'
}

If we try to access a non-existent key, python returns us an error as follows

>>> state_capitals['Alabama']
Traceback (most recent call last):

File "<ipython-input-61-236329695e6f>", line 1, in <module>

state_capitals['Alabama']

KeyError: 'Alabama'

Let us try with a defaultdict. It can be found in the collections module.

>>> from collections import defaultdict

>>> state_capitals = defaultdict(lambda: 'Boston')

What we did here is to set a default value (Boston) in case the give key does not exist. Now populate the dict as
before:

>>> state_capitals['Arkansas'] = 'Little Rock'

>>> state_capitals['California'] = 'Sacramento'
>>> state_capitals['Colorado'] = 'Denver'
>>> state_capitals['Georgia'] = 'Atlanta'

If we try to access the dict with a non-existent key, python will return us the default value i.e. Boston

>>> state_capitals['Alabama']
'Boston'

and returns the created values for existing key just like a normal dictionary

>>> state_capitals['Arkansas']
'Little Rock'

Section 1.6: IDLE - Python GUI

IDLE is Python’s Integrated Development and Learning Environment and is an alternative to the command line. As
the name may imply, IDLE is very useful for developing new code or learning python. On Windows this comes with
the Python interpreter, but in other operating systems you may need to install it through your package manager.

The main purposes of IDLE are:

Multi-window text editor with syntax highlighting, autocompletion, and smart indent
Python shell with syntax highlighting
Integrated debugger with stepping, persistent breakpoints, and call stack visibility
Automatic indentation (useful for beginners learning about Python's indentation)

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 Saving the Python program as .py files and run them and edit them later at any them using IDLE.

In IDLE, hit F5 or run Python Shell to launch an interpreter. Using IDLE can be a better learning experience for
new users because code is interpreted as the user writes.

Note that there are lots of alternatives, see for example this discussion or this list.

Troubleshooting

Windows

If you're on Windows, the default command is python. If you receive a "'python' is not recognized" error,
the most likely cause is that Python's location is not in your system's PATH environment variable. This can be
accessed by right-clicking on 'My Computer' and selecting 'Properties' or by navigating to 'System' through
'Control Panel'. Click on 'Advanced system settings' and then 'Environment Variables...'. Edit the PATH variable
to include the directory of your Python installation, as well as the Script folder (usually
C:\Python27;C:\Python27\Scripts). This requires administrative privileges and may require a restart.

When using multiple versions of Python on the same machine, a possible solution is to rename one of the
python.exe files. For example, naming one version python27.exe would cause python27 to become the
Python command for that version.

You can also use the Python Launcher for Windows, which is available through the installer and comes by
default. It allows you to select the version of Python to run by using py -[x.y] instead of python[x.y]. You
can use the latest version of Python 2 by running scripts with py -2 and the latest version of Python 3 by
running scripts with py -3.

Debian/Ubuntu/MacOS

This section assumes that the location of the python executable has been added to the PATH environment
variable.

If you're on Debian/Ubuntu/MacOS, open the terminal and type python for Python 2.x or python3 for Python
3.x.

Type which python to see which Python interpreter will be used.

Arch Linux

The default Python on Arch Linux (and descendants) is Python 3, so use python or python3 for Python 3.x and
python2 for Python 2.x.

Other systems

Python 3 is sometimes bound to python instead of python3. To use Python 2 on these systems where it is
installed, you can use python2.

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Section 1.7: User Input
Interactive input

To get input from the user, use the input function (note: in Python 2.x, the function is called raw_input instead,
although Python 2.x has its own version of input that is completely different):

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.3

name = raw_input("What is your name? ")

# Out: What is your name? _

Security Remark Do not use input() in Python2 - the entered text will be evaluated as if it were a
Python expression (equivalent to eval(input()) in Python3), which might easily become a vulnerability.
See this article for further information on the risks of using this function.

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.0

name = input("What is your name? ")

# Out: What is your name? _

The remainder of this example will be using Python 3 syntax.

The function takes a string argument, which displays it as a prompt and returns a string. The above code provides a
prompt, waiting for the user to input.

name = input("What is your name? ")

# Out: What is your name?

If the user types "Bob" and hits enter, the variable name will be assigned to the string "Bob":

name = input("What is your name? ")

# Out: What is your name? Bob
print(name)
# Out: Bob

Note that the input is always of type str, which is important if you want the user to enter numbers. Therefore, you
need to convert the str before trying to use it as a number:

x = input("Write a number:")
# Out: Write a number: 10
x / 2
# Out: TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for /: 'str' and 'int'
float(x) / 2
# Out: 5.0

NB: It's recommended to use try/except blocks to catch exceptions when dealing with user inputs. For instance, if
your code wants to cast a raw_input into an int, and what the user writes is uncastable, it raises a ValueError.

Section 1.8: Built in Modules and Functions

A module is a file containing Python definitions and statements. Function is a piece of code which execute some
logic.

>>> pow(2,3) #8

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To check the built in function in python we can use dir(). If called without an argument, return the names in the
current scope. Else, return an alphabetized list of names comprising (some of) the attribute of the given object, and
of attributes reachable from it.

>>> dir(__builtins__)
[
'ArithmeticError',
'AssertionError',
'AttributeError',
'BaseException',
'BufferError',
'BytesWarning',
'DeprecationWarning',
'EOFError',
'Ellipsis',
'EnvironmentError',
'Exception',
'False',
'FloatingPointError',
'FutureWarning',
'GeneratorExit',
'IOError',
'ImportError',
'ImportWarning',
'IndentationError',
'IndexError',
'KeyError',
'KeyboardInterrupt',
'LookupError',
'MemoryError',
'NameError',
'None',
'NotImplemented',
'NotImplementedError',
'OSError',
'OverflowError',
'PendingDeprecationWarning',
'ReferenceError',
'RuntimeError',
'RuntimeWarning',
'StandardError',
'StopIteration',
'SyntaxError',
'SyntaxWarning',
'SystemError',
'SystemExit',
'TabError',
'True',
'TypeError',
'UnboundLocalError',
'UnicodeDecodeError',
'UnicodeEncodeError',
'UnicodeError',
'UnicodeTranslateError',
'UnicodeWarning',
'UserWarning',
'ValueError',
'Warning',
'ZeroDivisionError',
'__debug__',
'__doc__',

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 '__import__',
'__name__',
'__package__',
'abs',
'all',
'any',
'apply',
'basestring',
'bin',
'bool',
'buffer',
'bytearray',
'bytes',
'callable',
'chr',
'classmethod',
'cmp',
'coerce',
'compile',
'complex',
'copyright',
'credits',
'delattr',
'dict',
'dir',
'divmod',
'enumerate',
'eval',
'execfile',
'exit',
'file',
'filter',
'float',
'format',
'frozenset',
'getattr',
'globals',
'hasattr',
'hash',
'help',
'hex',
'id',
'input',
'int',
'intern',
'isinstance',
'issubclass',
'iter',
'len',
'license',
'list',
'locals',
'long',
'map',
'max',
'memoryview',
'min',
'next',
'object',
'oct',
'open',
'ord',

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 'pow',
'print',
'property',
'quit',
'range',
'raw_input',
'reduce',
'reload',
'repr',
'reversed',
'round',
'set',
'setattr',
'slice',
'sorted',
'staticmethod',
'str',
'sum',
'super',
'tuple',
'type',
'unichr',
'unicode',
'vars',
'xrange',
'zip'
]

To know the functionality of any function, we can use built in function help .

>>> help(max)
Help on built-in function max in module __builtin__:
max(...)
max(iterable[, key=func]) -> value
max(a, b, c, ...[, key=func]) -> value
With a single iterable argument, return its largest item.
With two or more arguments, return the largest argument.

Built in modules contains extra functionalities. For example to get square root of a number we need to include math
module.

>>> import math

>>> math.sqrt(16) # 4.0

To know all the functions in a module we can assign the functions list to a variable, and then print the variable.

>>> import math

>>> dir(math)

['__doc__', '__name__', '__package__', 'acos', 'acosh',

'asin', 'asinh', 'atan', 'atan2', 'atanh', 'ceil', 'copysign',
'cos', 'cosh', 'degrees', 'e', 'erf', 'erfc', 'exp', 'expm1',
'fabs', 'factorial', 'floor', 'fmod', 'frexp', 'fsum', 'gamma',
'hypot', 'isinf', 'isnan', 'ldexp', 'lgamma', 'log', 'log10',
'log1p', 'modf', 'pi', 'pow', 'radians', 'sin', 'sinh', 'sqrt',
'tan', 'tanh', 'trunc']

it seems __doc__ is useful to provide some documentation in, say, functions

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>>> math.__doc__
'This module is always available. It provides access to the\nmathematical
functions defined by the C standard.'

In addition to functions, documentation can also be provided in modules. So, if you have a file named
helloWorld.py like this:

"""This is the module docstring."""

def sayHello():
"""This is the function docstring."""
return 'Hello World'

You can access its docstrings like this:

>>> import helloWorld

>>> helloWorld.__doc__
'This is the module docstring.'
>>> helloWorld.sayHello.__doc__
'This is the function docstring.'

For any user defined type, its attributes, its class's attributes, and recursively the attributes of its class's base
classes can be retrieved using dir()

>>> class MyClassObject(object):

... pass
...
>>> dir(MyClassObject)
['__class__', '__delattr__', '__dict__', '__doc__', '__format__', '__getattribute__', '__hash__',
'__init__', '__module__', '__new__', '__reduce__', '__reduce_ex__', '__repr__', '__setattr__',
'__sizeof__', '__str__', '__subclasshook__', '__weakref__']

Any data type can be simply converted to string using a builtin function called str. This function is called by default
when a data type is passed to print

>>> str(123) # "123"

Section 1.9: Creating a module

A module is an importable file containing definitions and statements.

A module can be created by creating a .py file.

# hello.py
def say_hello():
print("Hello!")

Functions in a module can be used by importing the module.

For modules that you have made, they will need to be in the same directory as the file that you are importing them
into. (However, you can also put them into the Python lib directory with the pre-included modules, but should be
avoided if possible.)

$ python
>>> import hello
>>> hello.say_hello()

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=> "Hello!"

Modules can be imported by other modules.

# greet.py
import hello
hello.say_hello()

Specific functions of a module can be imported.

# greet.py
from hello import say_hello
say_hello()

Modules can be aliased.

# greet.py
import hello as ai
ai.say_hello()

A module can be stand-alone runnable script.

# run_hello.py
if __name__ == '__main__':
from hello import say_hello
say_hello()

Run it!

$ python run_hello.py
=> "Hello!"

If the module is inside a directory and needs to be detected by python, the directory should contain a file named
__init__.py.

Section 1.10: Installation of Python 2.7.x and 3.x

Note: Following instructions are written for Python 2.7 (unless specified): instructions for Python 3.x are
similar.

Windows

First, download the latest version of Python 2.7 from the official Website (https://www.python.org/downloads/).
Version is provided as an MSI package. To install it manually, just double-click the file.

By default, Python installs to a directory:

C:\Python27\

Warning: installation does not automatically modify the PATH environment variable.

Assuming that your Python installation is in C:\Python27, add this to your PATH:

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C:\Python27\;C:\Python27\Scripts\

Now to check if Python installation is valid write in cmd:

python --version

Python 2.x and 3.x Side-By-Side

To install and use both Python 2.x and 3.x side-by-side on a Windows machine:

1. Install Python 2.x using the MSI installer.

Ensure Python is installed for all users.

Optional: add Python to PATH to make Python 2.x callable from the command-line using python.

2. Install Python 3.x using its respective installer.

Again, ensure Python is installed for all users.

Optional: add Python to PATH to make Python 3.x callable from the command-line using python. This
may override Python 2.x PATH settings, so double-check your PATH and ensure it's configured to your
preferences.
Make sure to install the py launcher for all users.

Python 3 will install the Python launcher which can be used to launch Python 2.x and Python 3.x interchangeably
from the command-line:

P:\>py -3
Python 3.6.1 (v3.6.1:69c0db5, Mar 21 2017, 17:54:52) [MSC v.1900 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>

C:\>py -2
Python 2.7.13 (v2.7.13:a06454b1afa1, Dec 17 2016, 20:42:59) [MSC v.1500 32 Intel)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>

To use the corresponding version of pip for a specific Python version, use:

C:\>py -3 -m pip -V
pip 9.0.1 from C:\Python36\lib\site-packages (python 3.6)

C:\>py -2 -m pip -V
pip 9.0.1 from C:\Python27\lib\site-packages (python 2.7)

Linux

The latest versions of CentOS, Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise (RHEL) and Ubuntu come with Python 2.7.

To install Python 2.7 on linux manually, just do the following in terminal:

wget --no-check-certificate https://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.X/Python-2.7.X.tgz

tar -xzf Python-2.7.X.tgz
cd Python-2.7.X
./configure
make

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sudo make install

Also add the path of new python in PATH environment variable. If new python is in /root/python-2.7.X then run
export PATH = $PATH:/root/python-2.7.X

Now to check if Python installation is valid write in terminal:

python --version

Ubuntu (From Source)

If you need Python 3.6 you can install it from source as shown below (Ubuntu 16.10 and 17.04 have 3.6 version in
the universal repository). Below steps have to be followed for Ubuntu 16.04 and lower versions:

sudo apt install build-essential checkinstall

sudo apt install libreadline-gplv2-dev libncursesw5-dev libssl-dev libsqlite3-dev tk-dev libgdbm-
dev libc6-dev libbz2-dev
wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.6.1/Python-3.6.1.tar.xz
tar xvf Python-3.6.1.tar.xz
cd Python-3.6.1/
./configure --enable-optimizations
sudo make altinstall

macOS

As we speak, macOS comes installed with Python 2.7.10, but this version is outdated and slightly modified from the
regular Python.

The version of Python that ships with OS X is great for learning but it’s not good for development. The
version shipped with OS X may be out of date from the official current Python release, which is
considered the stable production version. (source)

Install Homebrew:

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Install Python 2.7:

brew install python

For Python 3.x, use the command brew install python3 instead.

Section 1.11: String function - str() and repr()

There are two functions that can be used to obtain a readable representation of an object.

repr(x) calls x.__repr__(): a representation of x. eval will usually convert the result of this function back to the
original object.

str(x) calls x.__str__(): a human-readable string that describes the object. This may elide some technical detail.

repr()

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For many types, this function makes an attempt to return a string that would yield an object with the same value
when passed to eval(). Otherwise, the representation is a string enclosed in angle brackets that contains the name
of the type of the object along with additional information. This often includes the name and address of the object.

str()

For strings, this returns the string itself. The difference between this and repr(object) is that str(object) does
not always attempt to return a string that is acceptable to eval(). Rather, its goal is to return a printable or 'human
readable' string. If no argument is given, this returns the empty string, ''.

Example 1:

s = """w'o"w"""
repr(s) # Output: '\'w\\\'o"w\''
str(s) # Output: 'w\'o"w'
eval(str(s)) == s # Gives a SyntaxError
eval(repr(s)) == s # Output: True

Example 2:

import datetime
today = datetime.datetime.now()
str(today) # Output: '2016-09-15 06:58:46.915000'
repr(today) # Output: 'datetime.datetime(2016, 9, 15, 6, 58, 46, 915000)'

When writing a class, you can override these methods to do whatever you want:

class Represent(object):

def __init__(self, x, y):

self.x, self.y = x, y

def __repr__(self):
return "Represent(x={},y=\"{}\")".format(self.x, self.y)

def __str__(self):
return "Representing x as {} and y as {}".format(self.x, self.y)

Using the above class we can see the results:

r = Represent(1, "Hopper")
print(r) # prints __str__
print(r.__repr__) # prints __repr__: '<bound method Represent.__repr__ of
Represent(x=1,y="Hopper")>'
rep = r.__repr__() # sets the execution of __repr__ to a new variable
print(rep) # prints 'Represent(x=1,y="Hopper")'
r2 = eval(rep) # evaluates rep
print(r2) # prints __str__ from new object
print(r2 == r) # prints 'False' because they are different objects

Section 1.12: Installing external modules using pip

pip is your friend when you need to install any package from the plethora of choices available at the python
package index (PyPI). pip is already installed if you're using Python 2 >= 2.7.9 or Python 3 >= 3.4 downloaded from
python.org. For computers running Linux or another *nix with a native package manager, pip must often be
manually installed.

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On instances with both Python 2 and Python 3 installed, pip often refers to Python 2 and pip3 to Python 3. Using
pip will only install packages for Python 2 and pip3 will only install packages for Python 3.

Finding / installing a package

Searching for a package is as simple as typing

$ pip search <query>

# Searches for packages whose name or summary contains <query>

Installing a package is as simple as typing (in a terminal / command-prompt, not in the Python interpreter)

$ pip install [package_name] # latest version of the package

$ pip install [package_name]==x.x.x # specific version of the package

$ pip install '[package_name]>=x.x.x' # minimum version of the package

where x.x.x is the version number of the package you want to install.

When your server is behind proxy, you can install package by using below command:

$ pip --proxy http://<server address>:<port> install

Upgrading installed packages

When new versions of installed packages appear they are not automatically installed to your system. To get an
overview of which of your installed packages have become outdated, run:

$ pip list --outdated

To upgrade a specific package use

$ pip install [package_name] --upgrade

Updating all outdated packages is not a standard functionality of pip.

Upgrading pip

You can upgrade your existing pip installation by using the following commands

On Linux or macOS X:

$ pip install -U pip

You may need to use sudo with pip on some Linux Systems

On Windows:

py -m pip install -U pip

or

python -m pip install -U pip

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For more information regarding pip do read here.

Section 1.13: Help Utility

Python has several functions built into the interpreter. If you want to get information of keywords, built-in
functions, modules or topics open a Python console and enter:

>>> help()

You will receive information by entering keywords directly:

>>> help(help)

or within the utility:

help> help

which will show an explanation:

Help on _Helper in module _sitebuiltins object:

class _Helper(builtins.object)
| Define the builtin 'help'.
|
| This is a wrapper around pydoc.help that provides a helpful message
| when 'help' is typed at the Python interactive prompt.
|
| Calling help() at the Python prompt starts an interactive help session.
| Calling help(thing) prints help for the python object 'thing'.
|
| Methods defined here:
|
| __call__(self, *args, **kwds)
|
| __repr__(self)
|
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------
| Data descriptors defined here:
|
| __dict__
| dictionary for instance variables (if defined)
|
| __weakref__
| list of weak references to the object (if defined)

You can also request subclasses of modules:

help(pymysql.connections)

You can use help to access the docstrings of the different modules you have imported, e.g., try the following:

>>> help(math)

and you'll get an error

>>> import math

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>>> help(math)

And now you will get a list of the available methods in the module, but only AFTER you have imported it.

Close the helper with quit

GoalKicker.com – Python® Notes for Professionals 32

Chapter 2: Python Data Types
Data types are nothing but variables you use to reserve some space in memory. Python variables do not need an
explicit declaration to reserve memory space. The declaration happens automatically when you assign a value to a
variable.

Section 2.1: String Data Type

String are identified as a contiguous set of characters represented in the quotation marks. Python allows for either
pairs of single or double quotes. Strings are immutable sequence data type, i.e each time one makes any changes
to a string, completely new string object is created.

a_str = 'Hello World'

print(a_str) #output will be whole string. Hello World
print(a_str[0]) #output will be first character. H
print(a_str[0:5]) #output will be first five characters. Hello

Section 2.2: Set Data Types

Sets are unordered collections of unique objects, there are two types of set:

1. Sets - They are mutable and new elements can be added once sets are defined

basket = {'apple', 'orange', 'apple', 'pear', 'orange', 'banana'}

print(basket) # duplicates will be removed
> {'orange', 'banana', 'pear', 'apple'}
a = set('abracadabra')
print(a) # unique letters in a
> {'a', 'r', 'b', 'c', 'd'}
a.add('z')
print(a)
> {'a', 'c', 'r', 'b', 'z', 'd'}

2. Frozen Sets - They are immutable and new elements cannot added after its defined.

b = frozenset('asdfagsa')
print(b)
> frozenset({'f', 'g', 'd', 'a', 's'})
cities = frozenset(["Frankfurt", "Basel","Freiburg"])
print(cities)
> frozenset({'Frankfurt', 'Basel', 'Freiburg'})

Section 2.3: Numbers data type

Numbers have four types in Python. Int, float, complex, and long.

int_num = 10 #int value

float_num = 10.2 #float value
complex_num = 3.14j #complex value
long_num = 1234567L #long value

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Section 2.4: List Data Type
A list contains items separated by commas and enclosed within square brackets [].lists are almost similar to arrays
in C. One difference is that all the items belonging to a list can be of different data type.

list = [123,'abcd',10.2,'d'] #can be an array of any data type or single data type.
list1 = ['hello','world']
print(list) #will output whole list. [123,'abcd',10.2,'d']
print(list[0:2]) #will output first two element of list. [123,'abcd']
print(list1 * 2) #will gave list1 two times. ['hello','world','hello','world']
print(list + list1) #will gave concatenation of both the lists.
[123,'abcd',10.2,'d','hello','world']

Section 2.5: Dictionary Data Type

Dictionary consists of key-value pairs. It is enclosed by curly braces {} and values can be assigned and accessed
using square brackets[].

dic={'name':'red','age':10}
print(dic) #will output all the key-value pairs. {'name':'red','age':10}
print(dic['name']) #will output only value with 'name' key. 'red'
print(dic.values()) #will output list of values in dic. ['red',10]
print(dic.keys()) #will output list of keys. ['name','age']

Section 2.6: Tuple Data Type

Lists are enclosed in brackets [ ] and their elements and size can be changed, while tuples are enclosed in
parentheses ( ) and cannot be updated. Tuples are immutable.

tuple = (123,'hello')
tuple1 = ('world')
print(tuple) #will output whole tuple. (123,'hello')
print(tuple[0]) #will output first value. (123)
print(tuple + tuple1) #will output (123,'hello','world')
tuple[1]='update' #this will give you error.

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Chapter 3: Indentation
Section 3.1: Simple example
For Python, Guido van Rossum based the grouping of statements on indentation. The reasons for this are explained
in the first section of the "Design and History Python FAQ". Colons, :, are used to declare an indented code block,
such as the following example:

class ExampleClass:
#Every function belonging to a class must be indented equally
def __init__(self):
name = "example"

def someFunction(self, a):

#Notice everything belonging to a function must be indented
if a > 5:
return True
else:
return False

#If a function is not indented to the same level it will not be considers as part of the parent class
def separateFunction(b):
for i in b:
#Loops are also indented and nested conditions start a new indentation
if i == 1:
return True
return False

separateFunction([2,3,5,6,1])

Spaces or Tabs?

The recommended indentation is 4 spaces but tabs or spaces can be used so long as they are consistent. Do not
mix tabs and spaces in Python as this will cause an error in Python 3 and can causes errors in Python 2.

Section 3.2: How Indentation is Parsed

Whitespace is handled by the lexical analyzer before being parsed.

The lexical analyzer uses a stack to store indentation levels. At the beginning, the stack contains just the value 0,
which is the leftmost position. Whenever a nested block begins, the new indentation level is pushed on the stack,
and an "INDENT" token is inserted into the token stream which is passed to the parser. There can never be more
than one "INDENT" token in a row (IndentationError).

When a line is encountered with a smaller indentation level, values are popped from the stack until a value is on top
which is equal to the new indentation level (if none is found, a syntax error occurs). For each value popped, a
"DEDENT" token is generated. Obviously, there can be multiple "DEDENT" tokens in a row.

The lexical analyzer skips empty lines (those containing only whitespace and possibly comments), and will never
generate either "INDENT" or "DEDENT" tokens for them.

At the end of the source code, "DEDENT" tokens are generated for each indentation level left on the stack, until just
the 0 is left.

For example:

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if foo:
if bar:
x = 42
else:
print foo

is analyzed as:

<if> <foo> <:> [0]

<INDENT> <if> <bar> <:> [0, 4]
<INDENT> <x> <=> <42> [0, 4, 8]
<DEDENT> <DEDENT> <else> <:> [0]
<INDENT> <print> <foo> [0, 2]
<DEDENT>

The parser than handles the "INDENT" and "DEDENT" tokens as block delimiters.

Section 3.3: Indentation Errors

The spacing should be even and uniform throughout. Improper indentation can cause an IndentationError or
cause the program to do something unexpected. The following example raises an IndentationError:

a = 7
if a > 5:
print "foo"
else:
print "bar"
print "done"

Or if the line following a colon is not indented, an IndentationError will also be raised:

if True:
print "true"

If you add indentation where it doesn't belong, an IndentationError will be raised:

if True:
a = 6
b = 5

If you forget to un-indent functionality could be lost. In this example None is returned instead of the expected False:

def isEven(a):
if a%2 ==0:
return True
#this next line should be even with the if
return False
print isEven(7)

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Chapter 4: Comments and Documentation
Section 4.1: Single line, inline and multiline comments
Comments are used to explain code when the basic code itself isn't clear.

Python ignores comments, and so will not execute code in there, or raise syntax errors for plain English sentences.

Single-line comments begin with the hash character (#) and are terminated by the end of line.

Single line comment:

# This is a single line comment in Python

Inline comment:

print("Hello World") # This line prints "Hello World"

Comments spanning multiple lines have """ or ''' on either end. This is the same as a multiline string, but
they can be used as comments:

"""
This type of comment spans multiple lines.
These are mostly used for documentation of functions, classes and modules.
"""

Section 4.2: Programmatically accessing docstrings

Docstrings are - unlike regular comments - stored as an attribute of the function they document, meaning that you
can access them programmatically.

An example function
def func():
"""This is a function that does nothing at all"""
return

The docstring can be accessed using the __doc__ attribute:

print(func.__doc__)

This is a function that does nothing at all

help(func)

Help on function func in module __main__:

func()

This is a function that does nothing at all

Another example function

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function.__doc__ is just the actual docstring as a string, while the help function provides general information
about a function, including the docstring. Here's a more helpful example:

def greet(name, greeting="Hello"):

"""Print a greeting to the user `name`

Optional parameter `greeting` can change what they're greeted with."""

print("{} {}".format(greeting, name))

help(greet)

Help on function greet in module __main__:

greet(name, greeting='Hello')

Print a greeting to the user name

Optional parameter greeting can change what they're greeted with.

Advantages of docstrings over regular comments

Just putting no docstring or a regular comment in a function makes it a lot less helpful.

def greet(name, greeting="Hello"):

# Print a greeting to the user `name`
# Optional parameter `greeting` can change what they're greeted with.

print("{} {}".format(greeting, name))

print(greet.__doc__)

None

help(greet)

Help on function greet in module main:

greet(name, greeting='Hello')

Section 4.3: Write documentation using docstrings

A docstring is a multi-line comment used to document modules, classes, functions and methods. It has to be the
first statement of the component it describes.

def hello(name):
"""Greet someone.

Print a greeting ("Hello") for the person with the given name.
"""

print("Hello "+name)

class Greeter:
"""An object used to greet people.

GoalKicker.com – Python® Notes for Professionals 38

 It contains multiple greeting functions for several languages
and times of the day.
"""

The value of the docstring can be accessed within the program and is - for example - used by the help command.

Syntax conventions
PEP 257

PEP 257 defines a syntax standard for docstring comments. It basically allows two types:

One-line Docstrings:

According to PEP 257, they should be used with short and simple functions. Everything is placed in one line, e.g:

def hello():
"""Say hello to your friends."""
print("Hello my friends!")

The docstring shall end with a period, the verb should be in the imperative form.

Multi-line Docstrings:

Multi-line docstring should be used for longer, more complex functions, modules or classes.

def hello(name, language="en"):

"""Say hello to a person.

Arguments:
name: the name of the person
language: the language in which the person should be greeted
"""

print(greeting[language]+" "+name)

They start with a short summary (equivalent to the content of a one-line docstring) which can be on the same line
as the quotation marks or on the next line, give additional detail and list parameters and return values.

Note PEP 257 defines what information should be given within a docstring, it doesn't define in which format it
should be given. This was the reason for other parties and documentation parsing tools to specify their own
standards for documentation, some of which are listed below and in this question.

Sphinx

Sphinx is a tool to generate HTML based documentation for Python projects based on docstrings. Its markup
language used is reStructuredText. They define their own standards for documentation, pythonhosted.org hosts a
very good description of them. The Sphinx format is for example used by the pyCharm IDE.

A function would be documented like this using the Sphinx/reStructuredText format:

def hello(name, language="en"):

"""Say hello to a person.

:param name: the name of the person

:type name: str
:param language: the language in which the person should be greeted
:type language: str

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 :return: a number
:rtype: int
"""

print(greeting[language]+" "+name)
return 4

Google Python Style Guide

Google has published Google Python Style Guide which defines coding conventions for Python, including
documentation comments. In comparison to the Sphinx/reST many people say that documentation according to
Google's guidelines is better human-readable.

The pythonhosted.org page mentioned above also provides some examples for good documentation according to
the Google Style Guide.

Using the Napoleon plugin, Sphinx can also parse documentation in the Google Style Guide-compliant format.

A function would be documented like this using the Google Style Guide format:

def hello(name, language="en"):

"""Say hello to a person.

Args:
name: the name of the person as string
language: the language code string

Returns:
A number.
"""

print(greeting[language]+" "+name)
return 4

GoalKicker.com – Python® Notes for Professionals 40

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Chapter 5: Date and Time
Section 5.1: Parsing a string into a timezone aware datetime
object
Python 3.2+ has support for %z format when parsing a string into a datetime object.

UTC offset in the form +HHMM or -HHMM (empty string if the object is naive).

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.2

import datetime
dt = datetime.datetime.strptime("2016-04-15T08:27:18-0500", "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S%z")

For other versions of Python, you can use an external library such as dateutil, which makes parsing a string with
timezone into a datetime object is quick.

import dateutil.parser
dt = dateutil.parser.parse("2016-04-15T08:27:18-0500")

The dt variable is now a datetime object with the following value:

datetime.datetime(2016, 4, 15, 8, 27, 18, tzinfo=tzoffset(None, -18000))

Section 5.2: Constructing timezone-aware datetimes

By default all datetime objects are naive. To make them timezone-aware, you must attach a tzinfo object, which
provides the UTC offset and timezone abbreviation as a function of date and time.

Fixed Offset Time Zones

For time zones that are a fixed offset from UTC, in Python 3.2+, the datetime module provides the timezone class, a
concrete implementation of tzinfo, which takes a timedelta and an (optional) name parameter:

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.2

from datetime import datetime, timedelta, timezone

JST = timezone(timedelta(hours=+9))

dt = datetime(2015, 1, 1, 12, 0, 0, tzinfo=JST)

print(dt)
# 2015-01-01 12:00:00+09:00

print(dt.tzname())
# UTC+09:00

dt = datetime(2015, 1, 1, 12, 0, 0, tzinfo=timezone(timedelta(hours=9), 'JST'))

print(dt.tzname)
# 'JST'

For Python versions before 3.2, it is necessary to use a third party library, such as dateutil. dateutil provides an
equivalent class, tzoffset, which (as of version 2.5.3) takes arguments of the form dateutil.tz.tzoffset(tzname,
offset), where offset is specified in seconds:

Python 3.x Version < 3.2

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Python 2.x Version < 2.7

from datetime import datetime, timedelta

from dateutil import tz

JST = tz.tzoffset('JST', 9 * 3600) # 3600 seconds per hour

dt = datetime(2015, 1, 1, 12, 0, tzinfo=JST)
print(dt)
# 2015-01-01 12:00:00+09:00
print(dt.tzname)
# 'JST'

Zones with daylight savings time

For zones with daylight savings time, python standard libraries do not provide a standard class, so it is necessary to
use a third party library. pytz and dateutil are popular libraries providing time zone classes.

In addition to static time zones, dateutil provides time zone classes that use daylight savings time (see the
documentation for the tz module). You can use the tz.gettz() method to get a time zone object, which can then
be passed directly to the datetime constructor:

from datetime import datetime

from dateutil import tz
local = tz.gettz() # Local time
PT = tz.gettz('US/Pacific') # Pacific time

dt_l = datetime(2015, 1, 1, 12, tzinfo=local) # I am in EST

dt_pst = datetime(2015, 1, 1, 12, tzinfo=PT)
dt_pdt = datetime(2015, 7, 1, 12, tzinfo=PT) # DST is handled automatically
print(dt_l)
# 2015-01-01 12:00:00-05:00
print(dt_pst)
# 2015-01-01 12:00:00-08:00
print(dt_pdt)
# 2015-07-01 12:00:00-07:00

CAUTION: As of version 2.5.3, dateutil does not handle ambiguous datetimes correctly, and will always default to
the later date. There is no way to construct an object with a dateutil timezone representing, for example
2015-11-01 1:30 EDT-4, since this is during a daylight savings time transition.

All edge cases are handled properly when using pytz, but pytz time zones should not be directly attached to time
zones through the constructor. Instead, a pytz time zone should be attached using the time zone's localize
method:

from datetime import datetime, timedelta

import pytz

PT = pytz.timezone('US/Pacific')
dt_pst = PT.localize(datetime(2015, 1, 1, 12))
dt_pdt = PT.localize(datetime(2015, 11, 1, 0, 30))
print(dt_pst)
# 2015-01-01 12:00:00-08:00
print(dt_pdt)
# 2015-11-01 00:30:00-07:00

Be aware that if you perform datetime arithmetic on a pytz-aware time zone, you must either perform the
calculations in UTC (if you want absolute elapsed time), or you must call normalize() on the result:

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dt_new = dt_pdt + timedelta(hours=3) # This should be 2:30 AM PST
print(dt_new)
# 2015-11-01 03:30:00-07:00
dt_corrected = PT.normalize(dt_new)
print(dt_corrected)
# 2015-11-01 02:30:00-08:00

Section 5.3: Computing time dierences

the timedelta module comes in handy to compute differences between times:

from datetime import datetime, timedelta

now = datetime.now()
then = datetime(2016, 5, 23) # datetime.datetime(2016, 05, 23, 0, 0, 0)

Specifying time is optional when creating a new datetime object

delta = now-then

delta is of type timedelta

print(delta.days)
# 60
print(delta.seconds)
# 40826

To get n day's after and n day's before date we could use:

n day's after date:

def get_n_days_after_date(date_format="%d %B %Y", add_days=120):

date_n_days_after = datetime.datetime.now() + timedelta(days=add_days)

return date_n_days_after.strftime(date_format)

n day's before date:

def get_n_days_before_date(self, date_format="%d %B %Y", days_before=120):

date_n_days_ago = datetime.datetime.now() - timedelta(days=days_before)

return date_n_days_ago.strftime(date_format)

Section 5.4: Basic datetime objects usage

The datetime module contains three primary types of objects - date, time, and datetime.

import datetime

# Date object
today = datetime.date.today()
new_year = datetime.date(2017, 01, 01) #datetime.date(2017, 1, 1)

# Time object
noon = datetime.time(12, 0, 0) #datetime.time(12, 0)

# Current datetime
now = datetime.datetime.now()

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# Datetime object
millenium_turn = datetime.datetime(2000, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0) #datetime.datetime(2000, 1, 1, 0, 0)

Arithmetic operations for these objects are only supported within same datatype and performing simple arithmetic
with instances of different types will result in a TypeError.

# subtraction of noon from today

noon-today
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for -: 'datetime.time' and 'datetime.date'
However, it is straightforward to convert between types.

# Do this instead
print('Time since the millenium at midnight: ',
datetime.datetime(today.year, today.month, today.day) - millenium_turn)

# Or this
print('Time since the millenium at noon: ',
datetime.datetime.combine(today, noon) - millenium_turn)

Section 5.5: Switching between time zones

To switch between time zones, you need datetime objects that are timezone-aware.

from datetime import datetime

from dateutil import tz

utc = tz.tzutc()
local = tz.tzlocal()

utc_now = datetime.utcnow()
utc_now # Not timezone-aware.

utc_now = utc_now.replace(tzinfo=utc)
utc_now # Timezone-aware.

local_now = utc_now.astimezone(local)
local_now # Converted to local time.

Section 5.6: Simple date arithmetic

Dates don't exist in isolation. It is common that you will need to find the amount of time between dates or
determine what the date will be tomorrow. This can be accomplished using timedelta objects

import datetime

today = datetime.date.today()
print('Today:', today)

yesterday = today - datetime.timedelta(days=1)

print('Yesterday:', yesterday)

tomorrow = today + datetime.timedelta(days=1)

print('Tomorrow:', tomorrow)

print('Time between tomorrow and yesterday:', tomorrow - yesterday)

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This will produce results similar to:

Today: 2016-04-15
Yesterday: 2016-04-14
Tomorrow: 2016-04-16
Difference between tomorrow and yesterday: 2 days, 0:00:00

Section 5.7: Converting timestamp to datetime

The datetime module can convert a POSIX timestamp to a ITC datetime object.

The Epoch is January 1st, 1970 midnight.

import time
from datetime import datetime
seconds_since_epoch=time.time() #1469182681.709

utc_date=datetime.utcfromtimestamp(seconds_since_epoch) #datetime.datetime(2016, 7, 22, 10, 18, 1,

709000)

Section 5.8: Subtracting months from a date accurately

Using the calendar module

import calendar
from datetime import date

def monthdelta(date, delta):

m, y = (date.month+delta) % 12, date.year + ((date.month)+delta-1) // 12
if not m: m = 12
d = min(date.day, calendar.monthrange(y, m)[1])
return date.replace(day=d,month=m, year=y)

next_month = monthdelta(date.today(), 1) #datetime.date(2016, 10, 23)

Using the dateutils module

import datetime
import dateutil.relativedelta

d = datetime.datetime.strptime("2013-03-31", "%Y-%m-%d")
d2 = d - dateutil.relativedelta.relativedelta(months=1) #datetime.datetime(2013, 2, 28, 0, 0)

Section 5.9: Parsing an arbitrary ISO 8601 timestamp with

minimal libraries
Python has only limited support for parsing ISO 8601 timestamps. For strptime you need to know exactly what
format it is in. As a complication the stringification of a datetime is an ISO 8601 timestamp, with space as a
separator and 6 digit fraction:

str(datetime.datetime(2016, 7, 22, 9, 25, 59, 555555))

# '2016-07-22 09:25:59.555555'

but if the fraction is 0, no fractional part is output

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str(datetime.datetime(2016, 7, 22, 9, 25, 59, 0))
# '2016-07-22 09:25:59'

But these 2 forms need a different format for strptime. Furthermore, strptime' does not support at all
parsing minute timezones that have a:in it, thus2016-07-22 09:25:59+0300can be parsed, but the
standard format2016-07-22 09:25:59+03:00` cannot.

There is a single-file library called iso8601 which properly parses ISO 8601 timestamps and only them.

It supports fractions and timezones, and the T separator all with a single function:

import iso8601
iso8601.parse_date('2016-07-22 09:25:59')
# datetime.datetime(2016, 7, 22, 9, 25, 59, tzinfo=<iso8601.Utc>)
iso8601.parse_date('2016-07-22 09:25:59+03:00')
# datetime.datetime(2016, 7, 22, 9, 25, 59, tzinfo=<FixedOffset '+03:00' ...>)
iso8601.parse_date('2016-07-22 09:25:59Z')
# datetime.datetime(2016, 7, 22, 9, 25, 59, tzinfo=<iso8601.Utc>)
iso8601.parse_date('2016-07-22T09:25:59.000111+03:00')
# datetime.datetime(2016, 7, 22, 9, 25, 59, 111, tzinfo=<FixedOffset '+03:00' ...>)

If no timezone is set, iso8601.parse_date defaults to UTC. The default zone can be changed with default_zone
keyword argument. Notably, if this is None instead of the default, then those timestamps that do not have an
explicit timezone are returned as naive datetimes instead:

iso8601.parse_date('2016-07-22T09:25:59', default_timezone=None)
# datetime.datetime(2016, 7, 22, 9, 25, 59)
iso8601.parse_date('2016-07-22T09:25:59Z', default_timezone=None)
# datetime.datetime(2016, 7, 22, 9, 25, 59, tzinfo=<iso8601.Utc>)

Section 5.10: Get an ISO 8601 timestamp

Without timezone, with microseconds
from datetime import datetime

datetime.now().isoformat()
# Out: '2016-07-31T23:08:20.886783'

With timezone, with microseconds

from datetime import datetime
from dateutil.tz import tzlocal

datetime.now(tzlocal()).isoformat()
# Out: '2016-07-31T23:09:43.535074-07:00'

With timezone, without microseconds

from datetime import datetime
from dateutil.tz import tzlocal

datetime.now(tzlocal()).replace(microsecond=0).isoformat()
# Out: '2016-07-31T23:10:30-07:00'

See ISO 8601 for more information about the ISO 8601 format.

Section 5.11: Parsing a string with a short time zone name into

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a timezone aware datetime object
Using the dateutil library as in the previous example on parsing timezone-aware timestamps, it is also possible to
parse timestamps with a specified "short" time zone name.

For dates formatted with short time zone names or abbreviations, which are generally ambiguous (e.g. CST, which
could be Central Standard Time, China Standard Time, Cuba Standard Time, etc - more can be found here) or not
necessarily available in a standard database, it is necessary to specify a mapping between time zone abbreviation
and tzinfo object.

from dateutil import tz

from dateutil.parser import parse

ET = tz.gettz('US/Eastern')
CT = tz.gettz('US/Central')
MT = tz.gettz('US/Mountain')
PT = tz.gettz('US/Pacific')

us_tzinfos = {'CST': CT, 'CDT': CT,

'EST': ET, 'EDT': ET,
'MST': MT, 'MDT': MT,
'PST': PT, 'PDT': PT}

dt_est = parse('2014-01-02 04:00:00 EST', tzinfos=us_tzinfos)

dt_pst = parse('2016-03-11 16:00:00 PST', tzinfos=us_tzinfos)

After running this:

dt_est
# datetime.datetime(2014, 1, 2, 4, 0, tzinfo=tzfile('/usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Eastern'))
dt_pst
# datetime.datetime(2016, 3, 11, 16, 0, tzinfo=tzfile('/usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Pacific'))

It is worth noting that if using a pytz time zone with this method, it will not be properly localized:

from dateutil.parser import parse

import pytz

EST = pytz.timezone('America/New_York')
dt = parse('2014-02-03 09:17:00 EST', tzinfos={'EST': EST})

This simply attaches the pytz time zone to the datetime:

dt.tzinfo # Will be in Local Mean Time!

# <DstTzInfo 'America/New_York' LMT-1 day, 19:04:00 STD>

If using this method, you should probably re-localize the naive portion of the datetime after parsing:

dt_fixed = dt.tzinfo.localize(dt.replace(tzinfo=None))
dt_fixed.tzinfo # Now it's EST.
# <DstTzInfo 'America/New_York' EST-1 day, 19:00:00 STD>)

Section 5.12: Fuzzy datetime parsing (extracting datetime out

of a text)
It is possible to extract a date out of a text using the dateutil parser in a "fuzzy" mode, where components of the

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string not recognized as being part of a date are ignored.

from dateutil.parser import parse

dt = parse("Today is January 1, 2047 at 8:21:00AM", fuzzy=True)

print(dt)

dt is now a datetime object and you would see datetime.datetime(2047, 1, 1, 8, 21) printed.

Section 5.13: Iterate over dates

Sometimes you want to iterate over a range of dates from a start date to some end date. You can do it using
datetime library and timedelta object:

import datetime

# The size of each step in days

day_delta = datetime.timedelta(days=1)

start_date = datetime.date.today()
end_date = start_date + 7*day_delta

for i in range((end_date - start_date).days):

print(start_date + i*day_delta)

Which produces:

2016-07-21
2016-07-22
2016-07-23
2016-07-24
2016-07-25
2016-07-26
2016-07-27

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Chapter 6: Date Formatting
Section 6.1: Time between two date-times
from datetime import datetime

a = datetime(2016,10,06,0,0,0)
b = datetime(2016,10,01,23,59,59)

a-b
# datetime.timedelta(4, 1)

(a-b).days
# 4
(a-b).total_seconds()
# 518399.0

Section 6.2: Outputting datetime object to string

Uses C standard format codes.

from datetime import datetime

datetime_for_string = datetime(2016,10,1,0,0)
datetime_string_format = '%b %d %Y, %H:%M:%S'
datetime.strftime(datetime_for_string,datetime_string_format)
# Oct 01 2016, 00:00:00

Section 6.3: Parsing string to datetime object

Uses C standard format codes.

from datetime import datetime

datetime_string = 'Oct 1 2016, 00:00:00'
datetime_string_format = '%b %d %Y, %H:%M:%S'
datetime.strptime(datetime_string, datetime_string_format)
# datetime.datetime(2016, 10, 1, 0, 0)

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Chapter 7: Enum
Section 7.1: Creating an enum (Python 2.4 through 3.3)
Enums have been backported from Python 3.4 to Python 2.4 through Python 3.3. You can get this the enum34
backport from PyPI.

pip install enum34

Creation of an enum is identical to how it works in Python 3.4+

from enum import Enum

class Color(Enum):
red = 1
green = 2
blue = 3

print(Color.red) # Color.red
print(Color(1)) # Color.red
print(Color['red']) # Color.red

Section 7.2: Iteration

Enums are iterable:

class Color(Enum):
red = 1
green = 2
blue = 3

[c for c in Color] # [<Color.red: 1>, <Color.green: 2>, <Color.blue: 3>]

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Chapter 8: Set
Section 8.1: Operations on sets
with other sets

# Intersection
{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}.intersection({3, 4, 5, 6}) # {3, 4, 5}
{1, 2, 3, 4, 5} & {3, 4, 5, 6} # {3, 4, 5}

# Union
{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}.union({3, 4, 5, 6}) # {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}
{1, 2, 3, 4, 5} | {3, 4, 5, 6} # {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}

# Difference
{1, 2, 3, 4}.difference({2, 3, 5}) # {1, 4}
{1, 2, 3, 4} - {2, 3, 5} # {1, 4}

# Symmetric difference with

{1, 2, 3, 4}.symmetric_difference({2, 3, 5}) # {1, 4, 5}
{1, 2, 3, 4} ^ {2, 3, 5} # {1, 4, 5}

# Superset check
{1, 2}.issuperset({1, 2, 3}) # False
{1, 2} >= {1, 2, 3} # False

# Subset check
{1, 2}.issubset({1, 2, 3}) # True
{1, 2} <= {1, 2, 3} # True

# Disjoint check
{1, 2}.isdisjoint({3, 4}) # True
{1, 2}.isdisjoint({1, 4}) # False

with single elements

# Existence check
2 in {1,2,3} # True
4 in {1,2,3} # False
4 not in {1,2,3} # True

# Add and Remove

s = {1,2,3}
s.add(4) # s == {1,2,3,4}

s.discard(3) # s == {1,2,4}
s.discard(5) # s == {1,2,4}

s.remove(2) # s == {1,4}
s.remove(2) # KeyError!

Set operations return new sets, but have the corresponding in-place versions:

method in-place operation in-place method

union s |= t update
intersection s &= t intersection_update
difference s -= t difference_update

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symmetric_difference s ^= t symmetric_difference_update

For example:

s = {1, 2}
s.update({3, 4}) # s == {1, 2, 3, 4}

Section 8.2: Get the unique elements of a list

Let's say you've got a list of restaurants -- maybe you read it from a file. You care about the unique restaurants in
the list. The best way to get the unique elements from a list is to turn it into a set:

restaurants = ["McDonald's", "Burger King", "McDonald's", "Chicken Chicken"]

unique_restaurants = set(restaurants)
print(unique_restaurants)
# prints {'Chicken Chicken', "McDonald's", 'Burger King'}

Note that the set is not in the same order as the original list; that is because sets are unordered, just like dicts.

This can easily be transformed back into a List with Python's built in list function, giving another list that is the
same list as the original but without duplicates:

list(unique_restaurants)
# ['Chicken Chicken', "McDonald's", 'Burger King']

It's also common to see this as one line:

# Removes all duplicates and returns another list

list(set(restaurants))

Now any operations that could be performed on the original list can be done again.

Section 8.3: Set of Sets

{{1,2}, {3,4}}

leads to:

TypeError: unhashable type: 'set'

Instead, use frozenset:

{frozenset({1, 2}), frozenset({3, 4})}

Section 8.4: Set Operations using Methods and Builtins

We define two sets a and b

>>> a = {1, 2, 2, 3, 4}
>>> b = {3, 3, 4, 4, 5}

NOTE: {1} creates a set of one element, but {} creates an empty dict. The correct way to create an
empty set is set().

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Intersection

a.intersection(b) returns a new set with elements present in both a and b

>>> a.intersection(b)
{3, 4}

Union

a.union(b) returns a new set with elements present in either a and b

>>> a.union(b)
{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}

Difference

a.difference(b) returns a new set with elements present in a but not in b

>>> a.difference(b)
{1, 2}
>>> b.difference(a)
{5}

Symmetric Difference

a.symmetric_difference(b) returns a new set with elements present in either a or b but not in both

>>> a.symmetric_difference(b)
{1, 2, 5}
>>> b.symmetric_difference(a)
{1, 2, 5}

NOTE: a.symmetric_difference(b) == b.symmetric_difference(a)

Subset and superset

c.issubset(a) tests whether each element of c is in a.

a.issuperset(c) tests whether each element of c is in a.

>>> c = {1, 2}
>>> c.issubset(a)
True
>>> a.issuperset(c)
True

The latter operations have equivalent operators as shown below:

Method Operator
a.intersection(b) a & b
a.union(b) a|b
a.difference(b) a - b
a.symmetric_difference(b) a ^ b
a.issubset(b) a <= b
a.issuperset(b) a >= b

Disjoint sets

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Sets a and d are disjoint if no element in a is also in d and vice versa.

>>> d = {5, 6}
>>> a.isdisjoint(b) # {2, 3, 4} are in both sets
False
>>> a.isdisjoint(d)
True

# This is an equivalent check, but less efficient

>>> len(a & d) == 0
True

# This is even less efficient

>>> a & d == set()
True

Testing membership

The builtin in keyword searches for occurances

>>> 1 in a
True
>>> 6 in a
False

Length

The builtin len() function returns the number of elements in the set

>>> len(a)
4
>>> len(b)
3

Section 8.5: Sets versus multisets

Sets are unordered collections of distinct elements. But sometimes we want to work with unordered collections of
elements that are not necessarily distinct and keep track of the elements' multiplicities.

Consider this example:

>>> setA = {'a','b','b','c'}

>>> setA
set(['a', 'c', 'b'])

By saving the strings 'a', 'b', 'b', 'c' into a set data structure we've lost the information on the fact that 'b'
occurs twice. Of course saving the elements to a list would retain this information

>>> listA = ['a','b','b','c']

>>> listA
['a', 'b', 'b', 'c']

but a list data structure introduces an extra unneeded ordering that will slow down our computations.

For implementing multisets Python provides the Counter class from the collections module (starting from version
2.7):

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.7

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>>> from collections import Counter
>>> counterA = Counter(['a','b','b','c'])
>>> counterA
Counter({'b': 2, 'a': 1, 'c': 1})

Counter is a dictionary where where elements are stored as dictionary keys and their counts are stored as
dictionary values. And as all dictionaries, it is an unordered collection.

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Chapter 9: Simple Mathematical Operators
Numerical types and their metaclasses

The numbers module contains the abstract metaclasses for the numerical types:

subclasses numbers.Number numbers.Integral numbers.Rational numbers.Real numbers.Complex

bool ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
int ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
fractions.Fraction ✓ ― ✓ ✓ ✓
float ✓ ― ― ✓ ✓
complex ✓ ― ― ― ✓
decimal.Decimal ✓ ― ― ― ―
Python does common mathematical operators on its own, including integer and float division, multiplication,
exponentiation, addition, and subtraction. The math module (included in all standard Python versions) offers
expanded functionality like trigonometric functions, root operations, logarithms, and many more.

Section 9.1: Division

Python does integer division when both operands are integers. The behavior of Python's division operators have
changed from Python 2.x and 3.x (see also Integer Division ).

a, b, c, d, e = 3, 2, 2.0, -3, 10

Python 2.x Version ≤ 2.7

In Python 2 the result of the ' / ' operator depends on the type of the numerator and denominator.

a / b # = 1

a / c # = 1.5

d / b # = -2

b / a # = 0

d / e # = -1

Note that because both a and b are ints, the result is an int.

The result is always rounded down (floored).

Because c is a float, the result of a / c is a float.

You can also use the operator module:

import operator # the operator module provides 2-argument arithmetic functions

operator.div(a, b) # = 1
operator.__div__(a, b) # = 1

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.2

What if you want float division:

Recommended:

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from __future__ import division # applies Python 3 style division to the entire module
a / b # = 1.5
a // b # = 1

Okay (if you don't want to apply to the whole module):

a / (b * 1.0) # = 1.5
1.0 * a / b # = 1.5
a / b * 1.0 # = 1.0 (careful with order of operations)

from operator import truediv

truediv(a, b) # = 1.5

Not recommended (may raise TypeError, eg if argument is complex):

float(a) / b # = 1.5
a / float(b) # = 1.5

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.2

The ' // ' operator in Python 2 forces floored division regardless of type.

a // b # = 1
a // c # = 1.0

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.0

In Python 3 the / operator performs 'true' division regardless of types. The // operator performs floor division and
maintains type.

a / b # = 1.5
e / b # = 5.0
a // b # = 1
a // c # = 1.0

import operator # the operator module provides 2-argument arithmetic functions

operator.truediv(a, b) # = 1.5
operator.floordiv(a, b) # = 1
operator.floordiv(a, c) # = 1.0

Possible combinations (builtin types):

int and int (gives an int in Python 2 and a float in Python 3)

int and float (gives a float)
int and complex (gives a complex)
float and float (gives a float)
float and complex (gives a complex)
complex and complex (gives a complex)

See PEP 238 for more information.

Section 9.2: Addition

a, b = 1, 2

# Using the "+" operator:

a + b # = 3

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# Using the "in-place" "+=" operator to add and assign:
a += b # a = 3 (equivalent to a = a + b)

import operator # contains 2 argument arithmetic functions for the examples

operator.add(a, b) # = 5 since a is set to 3 right before this line

# The "+=" operator is equivalent to:

a = operator.iadd(a, b) # a = 5 since a is set to 3 right before this line

Possible combinations (builtin types):

int and int (gives an int)

int and float (gives a float)
int and complex (gives a complex)
float and float (gives a float)
float and complex (gives a complex)
complex and complex (gives a complex)

Note: the + operator is also used for concatenating strings, lists and tuples:

"first string " + "second string" # = 'first string second string'

[1, 2, 3] + [4, 5, 6] # = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Section 9.3: Exponentiation

a, b = 2, 3

(a ** b) # = 8
pow(a, b) # = 8

import math
math.pow(a, b) # = 8.0 (always float; does not allow complex results)

import operator
operator.pow(a, b) # = 8

Another difference between the built-in pow and math.pow is that the built-in pow can accept three arguments:

a, b, c = 2, 3, 2

pow(2, 3, 2) # 0, calculates (2 ** 3) % 2, but as per Python docs,

# does so more efficiently

Special functions

The function math.sqrt(x) calculates the square root of x.

import math
import cmath
c = 4
math.sqrt(c) # = 2.0 (always float; does not allow complex results)
cmath.sqrt(c) # = (2+0j) (always complex)

To compute other roots, such as a cube root, raise the number to the reciprocal of the degree of the root. This
could be done with any of the exponential functions or operator.

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 import math
x = 8
math.pow(x, 1/3) # evaluates to 2.0
x**(1/3) # evaluates to 2.0

The function math.exp(x) computes e ** x.

math.exp(0) # 1.0
math.exp(1) # 2.718281828459045 (e)

The function math.expm1(x) computes e ** x - 1. When x is small, this gives significantly better precision than
math.exp(x) - 1.

math.expm1(0) # 0.0

math.exp(1e-6) - 1 # 1.0000004999621837e-06
math.expm1(1e-6) # 1.0000005000001665e-06
# exact result # 1.000000500000166666708333341666...

Section 9.4: Trigonometric Functions

a, b = 1, 2

import math

math.sin(a) # returns the sine of 'a' in radians

# Out: 0.8414709848078965

math.cosh(b) # returns the inverse hyperbolic cosine of 'b' in radians

# Out: 3.7621956910836314

math.atan(math.pi) # returns the arc tangent of 'pi' in radians

# Out: 1.2626272556789115

math.hypot(a, b) # returns the Euclidean norm, same as math.sqrt(a*a + b*b)

# Out: 2.23606797749979

Note that math.hypot(x, y) is also the length of the vector (or Euclidean distance) from the origin (0, 0)
to the point (x, y).

To compute the Euclidean distance between two points (x1, y1) & (x2, y2) you can use math.hypot as
follows

math.hypot(x2-x1, y2-y1)

To convert from radians -> degrees and degrees -> radians respectively use math.degrees and math.radians

math.degrees(a)
# Out: 57.29577951308232

math.radians(57.29577951308232)
# Out: 1.0

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Section 9.5: Inplace Operations
It is common within applications to need to have code like this:

a = a + 1

or

a = a * 2

There is an effective shortcut for these in place operations:

a += 1
# and
a *= 2

Any mathematic operator can be used before the '=' character to make an inplace operation:

-= decrement the variable in place

+= increment the variable in place
*= multiply the variable in place
/= divide the variable in place
//= floor divide the variable in place # Python 3
%= return the modulus of the variable in place
**= raise to a power in place

Other in place operators exist for the bitwise operators (^, | etc)

Section 9.6: Subtraction

a, b = 1, 2

# Using the "-" operator:

b - a # = 1

import operator # contains 2 argument arithmetic functions

operator.sub(b, a) # = 1

Possible combinations (builtin types):

int and int (gives an int)

int and float (gives a float)
int and complex (gives a complex)
float and float (gives a float)
float and complex (gives a complex)
complex and complex (gives a complex)

Section 9.7: Multiplication

a, b = 2, 3

a * b # = 6

import operator

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operator.mul(a, b) # = 6

Possible combinations (builtin types):

int and int (gives an int)

int and float (gives a float)
int and complex (gives a complex)
float and float (gives a float)
float and complex (gives a complex)
complex and complex (gives a complex)

Note: The * operator is also used for repeated concatenation of strings, lists, and tuples:

3 * 'ab' # = 'ababab'
3 * ('a', 'b') # = ('a', 'b', 'a', 'b', 'a', 'b')

Section 9.8: Logarithms

By default, the math.log function calculates the logarithm of a number, base e. You can optionally specify a base as
the second argument.

import math
import cmath

math.log(5) # = 1.6094379124341003
# optional base argument. Default is math.e
math.log(5, math.e) # = 1.6094379124341003
cmath.log(5) # = (1.6094379124341003+0j)
math.log(1000, 10) # 3.0 (always returns float)
cmath.log(1000, 10) # (3+0j)

Special variations of the math.log function exist for different bases.

# Logarithm base e - 1 (higher precision for low values)

math.log1p(5) # = 1.791759469228055

# Logarithm base 2
math.log2(8) # = 3.0

# Logarithm base 10
math.log10(100) # = 2.0
cmath.log10(100) # = (2+0j)

Section 9.9: Modulus

Like in many other languages, Python uses the % operator for calculating modulus.

3 % 4 # 3
10 % 2 # 0
6 % 4 # 2

Or by using the operator module:

import operator

operator.mod(3 , 4) # 3

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operator.mod(10 , 2) # 0
operator.mod(6 , 4) # 2

You can also use negative numbers.

-9 % 7 # 5
9 % -7 # -5
-9 % -7 # -2

If you need to find the result of integer division and modulus, you can use the divmod function as a shortcut:

quotient, remainder = divmod(9, 4)

# quotient = 2, remainder = 1 as 4 * 2 + 1 == 9

GoalKicker.com – Python® Notes for Professionals 63

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Chapter 10: Bitwise Operators
Bitwise operations alter binary strings at the bit level. These operations are incredibly basic and are directly
supported by the processor. These few operations are necessary in working with device drivers, low-level graphics,
cryptography, and network communications. This section provides useful knowledge and examples of Python's
bitwise operators.

Section 10.1: Bitwise NOT

The ~ operator will flip all of the bits in the number. Since computers use signed number representations — most
notably, the two's complement notation to encode negative binary numbers where negative numbers are written
with a leading one (1) instead of a leading zero (0).

This means that if you were using 8 bits to represent your two's-complement numbers, you would treat patterns
from 0000 0000 to 0111 1111 to represent numbers from 0 to 127 and reserve 1xxx xxxx to represent negative
numbers.

Eight-bit two's-complement numbers

Bits Unsigned Value Two's-complement Value

0000 0000 0 0
0000 0001 1 1
0000 0010 2 2
0111 1110 126 126
0111 1111 127 127
1000 0000 128 -128
1000 0001 129 -127
1000 0010 130 -126
1111 1110 254 -2
1111 1111 255 -1

In essence, this means that whereas 1010 0110 has an unsigned value of 166 (arrived at by adding (128 * 1) +
(64 * 0) + (32 * 1) + (16 * 0) + (8 * 0) + (4 * 1) + (2 * 1) + (1 * 0)), it has a two's-complement value
of -90 (arrived at by adding (128 * 1) - (64 * 0) - (32 * 1) - (16 * 0) - (8 * 0) - (4 * 1) - (2 * 1) -
(1 * 0), and complementing the value).

In this way, negative numbers range down to -128 (1000 0000). Zero (0) is represented as 0000 0000, and minus
one (-1) as 1111 1111.

In general, though, this means ~n = -n - 1.

# 0 = 0b0000 0000
~0
# Out: -1
# -1 = 0b1111 1111

# 1 = 0b0000 0001
~1
# Out: -2
# -2 = 1111 1110

# 2 = 0b0000 0010
~2

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# Out: -3
# -3 = 0b1111 1101

# 123 = 0b0111 1011

~123
# Out: -124
# -124 = 0b1000 0100

Note, the overall effect of this operation when applied to positive numbers can be summarized:

~n -> -|n+1|

And then, when applied to negative numbers, the corresponding effect is:

~-n -> |n-1|

The following examples illustrate this last rule...

# -0 = 0b0000 0000
~-0
# Out: -1
# -1 = 0b1111 1111
# 0 is the obvious exception to this rule, as -0 == 0 always

# -1 = 0b1000 0001
~-1
# Out: 0
# 0 = 0b0000 0000

# -2 = 0b1111 1110
~-2
# Out: 1
# 1 = 0b0000 0001

# -123 = 0b1111 1011

~-123
# Out: 122
# 122 = 0b0111 1010

Section 10.2: Bitwise XOR (Exclusive OR)

The ^ operator will perform a binary XOR in which a binary 1 is copied if and only if it is the value of exactly one
operand. Another way of stating this is that the result is 1 only if the operands are different. Examples include:

# 0 ^ 0 = 0
# 0 ^ 1 = 1
# 1 ^ 0 = 1
# 1 ^ 1 = 0

# 60 = 0b111100
# 30 = 0b011110
60 ^ 30
# Out: 34
# 34 = 0b100010

bin(60 ^ 30)

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# Out: 0b100010

Section 10.3: Bitwise AND

The & operator will perform a binary AND, where a bit is copied if it exists in both operands. That means:

# 0 & 0 = 0
# 0 & 1 = 0
# 1 & 0 = 0
# 1 & 1 = 1

# 60 = 0b111100
# 30 = 0b011110
60 & 30
# Out: 28
# 28 = 0b11100

bin(60 & 30)

# Out: 0b11100

Section 10.4: Bitwise OR

The | operator will perform a binary "or," where a bit is copied if it exists in either operand. That means:

# 0 | 0 = 0
# 0 | 1 = 1
# 1 | 0 = 1
# 1 | 1 = 1

# 60 = 0b111100
# 30 = 0b011110
60 | 30
# Out: 62
# 62 = 0b111110

bin(60 | 30)
# Out: 0b111110

Section 10.5: Bitwise Left Shift

The << operator will perform a bitwise "left shift," where the left operand's value is moved left by the number of bits
given by the right operand.

# 2 = 0b10
2 << 2
# Out: 8
# 8 = 0b1000

bin(2 << 2)
# Out: 0b1000

Performing a left bit shift of 1 is equivalent to multiplication by 2:

7 << 1
# Out: 14

Performing a left bit shift of n is equivalent to multiplication by 2**n:

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3 << 4
# Out: 48

Section 10.6: Bitwise Right Shift

The >> operator will perform a bitwise "right shift," where the left operand's value is moved right by the number of
bits given by the right operand.

# 8 = 0b1000
8 >> 2
# Out: 2
# 2 = 0b10

bin(8 >> 2)
# Out: 0b10

Performing a right bit shift of 1 is equivalent to integer division by 2:

36 >> 1
# Out: 18

15 >> 1
# Out: 7

Performing a right bit shift of n is equivalent to integer division by 2**n:

48 >> 4
# Out: 3

59 >> 3
# Out: 7

Section 10.7: Inplace Operations

All of the Bitwise operators (except ~) have their own in place versions

a = 0b001
a &= 0b010
# a = 0b000

a = 0b001
a |= 0b010
# a = 0b011

a = 0b001
a <<= 2
# a = 0b100

a = 0b100
a >>= 2
# a = 0b001

a = 0b101
a ^= 0b011
# a = 0b110

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Chapter 11: Boolean Operators
Section 11.1: `and` and `or` are not guaranteed to return a
boolean
When you use or, it will either return the first value in the expression if it's true, else it will blindly return the second
value. I.e. or is equivalent to:

def or_(a, b):

if a:
return a
else:
return b

For and, it will return its first value if it's false, else it returns the last value:

def and_(a, b):

if not a:
return a
else:
return b

Section 11.2: A simple example

In Python you can compare a single element using two binary operators--one on either side:

if 3.14 < x < 3.142:

print("x is near pi")

In many (most?) programming languages, this would be evaluated in a way contrary to regular math: (3.14 < x) <
3.142, but in Python it is treated like 3.14 < x and x < 3.142, just like most non-programmers would expect.

Section 11.3: Short-circuit evaluation

Python minimally evaluates Boolean expressions.

>>> def true_func():

... print("true_func()")
... return True
...
>>> def false_func():
... print("false_func()")
... return False
...
>>> true_func() or false_func()
true_func()
True
>>> false_func() or true_func()
false_func()
true_func()
True
>>> true_func() and false_func()
true_func()
false_func()
False
>>> false_func() and false_func()

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false_func()
False

Section 11.4: and

Evaluates to the second argument if and only if both of the arguments are truthy. Otherwise evaluates to the first
falsey argument.

x = True
y = True
z = x and y # z = True

x = True
y = False
z = x and y # z = False

x = False
y = True
z = x and y # z = False

x = False
y = False
z = x and y # z = False

x = 1
y = 1
z = x and y # z = y, so z = 1, see `and` and `or` are not guaranteed to be a boolean

x = 0
y = 1
z = x and y # z = x, so z = 0 (see above)

x = 1
y = 0
z = x and y # z = y, so z = 0 (see above)

x = 0
y = 0
z = x and y # z = x, so z = 0 (see above)

The 1's in the above example can be changed to any truthy value, and the 0's can be changed to any falsey value.

Section 11.5: or
Evaluates to the first truthy argument if either one of the arguments is truthy. If both arguments are falsey,
evaluates to the second argument.

x = True
y = True
z = x or y # z = True

x = True
y = False
z = x or y # z = True

x = False
y = True
z = x or y # z = True

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x = False
y = False
z = x or y # z = False

x = 1
y = 1
z = x or y # z = x, so z = 1, see `and` and `or` are not guaranteed to be a boolean

x = 1
y = 0
z = x or y # z = x, so z = 1 (see above)

x = 0
y = 1
z = x or y # z = y, so z = 1 (see above)

x = 0
y = 0
z = x or y # z = y, so z = 0 (see above)

The 1's in the above example can be changed to any truthy value, and the 0's can be changed to any falsey value.

Section 11.6: not

It returns the opposite of the following statement:

x = True
y = not x # y = False

x = False
y = not x # y = True

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Chapter 12: Operator Precedence
Python operators have a set order of precedence, which determines what operators are evaluated first in a
potentially ambiguous expression. For instance, in the expression 3 * 2 + 7, first 3 is multiplied by 2, and then the
result is added to 7, yielding 13. The expression is not evaluated the other way around, because * has a higher
precedence than +.

Below is a list of operators by precedence, and a brief description of what they (usually) do.

Section 12.1: Simple Operator Precedence Examples in python

Python follows PEMDAS rule. PEMDAS stands for Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication and Division, and Addition
and Subtraction.

Example:

>>> a, b, c, d = 2, 3, 5, 7
>>> a ** (b + c) # parentheses
256
>>> a * b ** c # exponent: same as `a * (b ** c)`
7776
>>> a + b * c / d # multiplication / division: same as `a + (b * c / d)`
4.142857142857142

Extras: mathematical rules hold, but not always:

>>> 300 / 300 * 200

200.0
>>> 300 * 200 / 300
200.0
>>> 1e300 / 1e300 * 1e200
1e+200
>>> 1e300 * 1e200 / 1e300
inf

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Chapter 13: Variable Scope and Binding
Section 13.1: Nonlocal Variables
Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.0

Python 3 added a new keyword called nonlocal. The nonlocal keyword adds a scope override to the inner scope.
You can read all about it in PEP 3104. This is best illustrated with a couple of code examples. One of the most
common examples is to create function that can increment:

def counter():
num = 0
def incrementer():
num += 1
return num
return incrementer

If you try running this code, you will receive an UnboundLocalError because the num variable is referenced before
it is assigned in the innermost function. Let's add nonlocal to the mix:

def counter():
num = 0
def incrementer():
nonlocal num
num += 1
return num
return incrementer

c = counter()
c() # = 1
c() # = 2
c() # = 3

Basically nonlocal will allow you to assign to variables in an outer scope, but not a global scope. So you can't use
nonlocal in our counter function because then it would try to assign to a global scope. Give it a try and you will
quickly get a SyntaxError. Instead you must use nonlocal in a nested function.

(Note that the functionality presented here is better implemented using generators.)

Section 13.2: Global Variables

In Python, variables inside functions are considered local if and only if they appear in the left side of an assignment
statement, or some other binding occurrence; otherwise such a binding is looked up in enclosing functions, up to
the global scope. This is true even if the assignment statement is never executed.

x = 'Hi'

def read_x():
print(x) # x is just referenced, therefore assumed global

read_x() # prints Hi

def read_y():
print(y) # here y is just referenced, therefore assumed global

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read_y() # NameError: global name 'y' is not defined

def read_y():
y = 'Hey' # y appears in an assignment, therefore it's local
print(y) # will find the local y

read_y() # prints Hey

def read_x_local_fail():
if False:
x = 'Hey' # x appears in an assignment, therefore it's local
print(x) # will look for the _local_ z, which is not assigned, and will not be found

read_x_local_fail() # UnboundLocalError: local variable 'x' referenced before assignment

Normally, an assignment inside a scope will shadow any outer variables of the same name:

x = 'Hi'

def change_local_x():
x = 'Bye'
print(x)
change_local_x() # prints Bye
print(x) # prints Hi

Declaring a name global means that, for the rest of the scope, any assignments to the name will happen at the
module's top level:

x = 'Hi'

def change_global_x():
global x
x = 'Bye'
print(x)

change_global_x() # prints Bye

print(x) # prints Bye

The global keyword means that assignments will happen at the module's top level, not at the program's top level.
Other modules will still need the usual dotted access to variables within the module.

To summarize: in order to know whether a variable x is local to a function, you should read the entire function:

1. if you've found global x, then x is a global variable

2. If you've found nonlocal x, then x belongs to an enclosing function, and is neither local nor global
3. If you've found x = 5 or for x in range(3) or some other binding, then x is a local variable
4. Otherwise x belongs to some enclosing scope (function scope, global scope, or builtins)

Section 13.3: Local Variables

If a name is bound inside a function, it is by default accessible only within the function:

def foo():
a = 5
print(a) # ok

print(a) # NameError: name 'a' is not defined

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Control flow constructs have no impact on the scope (with the exception of except), but accessing variable that was
not assigned yet is an error:

def foo():
if True:
a = 5
print(a) # ok

b = 3
def bar():
if False:
b = 5
print(b) # UnboundLocalError: local variable 'b' referenced before assignment

Common binding operations are assignments, for loops, and augmented assignments such as a += 5

Section 13.4: The del command

This command has several related yet distinct forms.

del v

If v is a variable, the command del v removes the variable from its scope. For example:

x = 5
print(x) # out: 5
del x
print(x) # NameError: name 'f' is not defined

Note that del is a binding occurrence, which means that unless explicitly stated otherwise (using nonlocal
or global), del v will make v local to the current scope. If you intend to delete v in an outer scope, use
nonlocal v or global v in the same scope of the del v statement.

In all the following, the intention of a command is a default behavior but is not enforced by the language. A class
might be written in a way that invalidates this intention.

del v.name

This command triggers a call to v.__delattr__(name).

The intention is to make the attribute name unavailable. For example:

class A:
pass

a = A()
a.x = 7
print(a.x) # out: 7
del a.x
print(a.x) # error: AttributeError: 'A' object has no attribute 'x'
del v[item]

This command triggers a call to v.__delitem__(item).

The intention is that item will not belong in the mapping implemented by the object v. For example:

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x = {'a': 1, 'b': 2}
del x['a']
print(x) # out: {'b': 2}
print(x['a']) # error: KeyError: 'a'
del v[a:b]

This actually calls v.__delslice__(a, b).

The intention is similar to the one described above, but with slices - ranges of items instead of a single item. For
example:

x = [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
del x[1:3]
print(x) # out: [0, 3, 4]

See also Garbage Collection#The del command.

Section 13.5: Functions skip class scope when looking up

names
Classes have a local scope during definition, but functions inside the class do not use that scope when looking up
names. Because lambdas are functions, and comprehensions are implemented using function scope, this can lead
to some surprising behavior.

a = 'global'

class Fred:
a = 'class' # class scope
b = (a for i in range(10)) # function scope
c = [a for i in range(10)] # function scope
d = a # class scope
e = lambda: a # function scope
f = lambda a=a: a # default argument uses class scope

@staticmethod # or @classmethod, or regular instance method

def g(): # function scope
return a

print(Fred.a) # class
print(next(Fred.b)) # global
print(Fred.c[0]) # class in Python 2, global in Python 3
print(Fred.d) # class
print(Fred.e()) # global
print(Fred.f()) # class
print(Fred.g()) # global

Users unfamiliar with how this scope works might expect b, c, and e to print class.

From PEP 227:

Names in class scope are not accessible. Names are resolved in the innermost enclosing function scope.
If a class definition occurs in a chain of nested scopes, the resolution process skips class definitions.

From Python's documentation on naming and binding:

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 The scope of names defined in a class block is limited to the class block; it does not extend to the code
blocks of methods – this includes comprehensions and generator expressions since they are
implemented using a function scope. This means that the following will fail:

class A:
a = 42
b = list(a + i for i in range(10))

This example uses references from this answer by Martijn Pieters, which contains more in depth analysis of this
behavior.

Section 13.6: Local vs Global Scope

What are local and global scope?

All Python variables which are accessible at some point in code are either in local scope or in global scope.

The explanation is that local scope includes all variables defined in the current function and global scope includes
variables defined outside of the current function.

foo = 1 # global

def func():
bar = 2 # local
print(foo) # prints variable foo from global scope
print(bar) # prints variable bar from local scope

One can inspect which variables are in which scope. Built-in functions locals() and globals() return the whole
scopes as dictionaries.

foo = 1

def func():
bar = 2
print(globals().keys()) # prints all variable names in global scope
print(locals().keys()) # prints all variable names in local scope

What happens with name clashes?

foo = 1

def func():
foo = 2 # creates a new variable foo in local scope, global foo is not affected

print(foo) # prints 2

# global variable foo still exists, unchanged:

print(globals()['foo']) # prints 1
print(locals()['foo']) # prints 2

To modify a global variable, use keyword global:

foo = 1

def func():
global foo
foo = 2 # this modifies the global foo, rather than creating a local variable

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The scope is defined for the whole body of the function!

What it means is that a variable will never be global for a half of the function and local afterwards, or vice-versa.

foo = 1

def func():
# This function has a local variable foo, because it is defined down below.
# So, foo is local from this point. Global foo is hidden.

print(foo) # raises UnboundLocalError, because local foo is not yet initialized

foo = 7
print(foo)

Likewise, the opposite:

foo = 1

def func():
# In this function, foo is a global variable from the beginning

foo = 7 # global foo is modified

print(foo) # 7
print(globals()['foo']) # 7

global foo # this could be anywhere within the function

print(foo) # 7

Functions within functions

There may be many levels of functions nested within functions, but within any one function there is only one local
scope for that function and the global scope. There are no intermediate scopes.

foo = 1

def f1():
bar = 1

def f2():
baz = 2
# here, foo is a global variable, baz is a local variable
# bar is not in either scope
print(locals().keys()) # ['baz']
print('bar' in locals()) # False
print('bar' in globals()) # False

def f3():
baz = 3
print(bar) # bar from f1 is referenced so it enters local scope of f3 (closure)
print(locals().keys()) # ['bar', 'baz']
print('bar' in locals()) # True
print('bar' in globals()) # False

def f4():
bar = 4 # a new local bar which hides bar from local scope of f1
baz = 4
print(bar)
print(locals().keys()) # ['bar', 'baz']
print('bar' in locals()) # True

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 print('bar' in globals()) # False

global vs nonlocal (Python 3 only)

Both these keywords are used to gain write access to variables which are not local to the current functions.

The global keyword declares that a name should be treated as a global variable.

foo = 0 # global foo

def f1():
foo = 1 # a new foo local in f1

def f2():
foo = 2 # a new foo local in f2

def f3():
foo = 3 # a new foo local in f3
print(foo) # 3
foo = 30 # modifies local foo in f3 only

def f4():
global foo
print(foo) # 0
foo = 100 # modifies global foo

On the other hand, nonlocal (see Nonlocal Variables ), available in Python 3, takes a local variable from an
enclosing scope into the local scope of current function.

From the Python documentation on nonlocal:

The nonlocal statement causes the listed identifiers to refer to previously bound variables in the nearest
enclosing scope excluding globals.

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.0

def f1():

def f2():
foo = 2 # a new foo local in f2

def f3():
nonlocal foo # foo from f2, which is the nearest enclosing scope
print(foo) # 2
foo = 20 # modifies foo from f2!

Section 13.7: Binding Occurrence

x = 5
x += 7
for x in iterable: pass

Each of the above statements is a binding occurrence - x become bound to the object denoted by 5. If this statement
appears inside a function, then x will be function-local by default. See the "Syntax" section for a list of binding
statements.

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Chapter 14: Conditionals
Conditional expressions, involving keywords such as if, elif, and else, provide Python programs with the ability to
perform different actions depending on a boolean condition: True or False. This section covers the use of Python
conditionals, boolean logic, and ternary statements.

Section 14.1: Conditional Expression (or "The Ternary

Operator")
The ternary operator is used for inline conditional expressions. It is best used in simple, concise operations that are
easily read.

The order of the arguments is different from many other languages (such as C, Ruby, Java, etc.), which may
lead to bugs when people unfamiliar with Python's "surprising" behaviour use it (they may reverse the order).
Some find it "unwieldy", since it goes contrary to the normal flow of thought (thinking of the condition first
and then the effects).

n = 5

"Greater than 2" if n > 2 else "Smaller than or equal to 2"

# Out: 'Greater than 2'

The result of this expression will be as it is read in English - if the conditional expression is True, then it will evaluate
to the expression on the left side, otherwise, the right side.

Ternary operations can also be nested, as here:

n = 5
"Hello" if n > 10 else "Goodbye" if n > 5 else "Good day"

They also provide a method of including conditionals in lambda functions.

Section 14.2: if, elif, and else

In Python you can define a series of conditionals using if for the first one, elif for the rest, up until the final
(optional) else for anything not caught by the other conditionals.

number = 5

if number > 2:
print("Number is bigger than 2.")
elif number < 2: # Optional clause (you can have multiple elifs)
print("Number is smaller than 2.")
else: # Optional clause (you can only have one else)
print("Number is 2.")

Outputs Number is bigger than 2

Using else if instead of elif will trigger a syntax error and is not allowed.

Section 14.3: Truth Values

The following values are considered falsey, in that they evaluate to False when applied to a boolean operator.

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 None
False
0, or any numerical value equivalent to zero, for example 0L, 0.0, 0j
Empty sequences: '', "", (), []
Empty mappings: {}
User-defined types where the __bool__ or __len__ methods return 0 or False

All other values in Python evaluate to True.

Note: A common mistake is to simply check for the Falseness of an operation which returns different Falsey values
where the difference matters. For example, using if foo() rather than the more explicit if foo() is None

Section 14.4: Boolean Logic Expressions

Boolean logic expressions, in addition to evaluating to True or False, return the value that was interpreted as True
or False. It is Pythonic way to represent logic that might otherwise require an if-else test.

And operator

The and operator evaluates all expressions and returns the last expression if all expressions evaluate to True.
Otherwise it returns the first value that evaluates to False:

>>> 1 and 2
2

>>> 1 and 0
0

>>> 1 and "Hello World"

"Hello World"

>>> "" and "Pancakes"

""

Or operator

The or operator evaluates the expressions left to right and returns the first value that evaluates to True or the last
value (if none are True).

>>> 1 or 2
1

>>> None or 1
1

>>> 0 or []
[]

Lazy evaluation

When you use this approach, remember that the evaluation is lazy. Expressions that are not required to be
evaluated to determine the result are not evaluated. For example:

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>>> def print_me():
print('I am here!')
>>> 0 and print_me()
0

In the above example, print_me is never executed because Python can determine the entire expression is False
when it encounters the 0 (False). Keep this in mind if print_me needs to execute to serve your program logic.

Testing for multiple conditions

A common mistake when checking for multiple conditions is to apply the logic incorrectly.

This example is trying to check if two variables are each greater than 2. The statement is evaluated as - if (a) and
(b > 2). This produces an unexpected result because bool(a) evaluates as True when a is not zero.

>>> a = 1
>>> b = 6
>>> if a and b > 2:
... print('yes')
... else:
... print('no')

yes

Each variable needs to be compared separately.

>>> if a > 2 and b > 2:

... print('yes')
... else:
... print('no')

no

Another, similar, mistake is made when checking if a variable is one of multiple values. The statement in this
example is evaluated as - if (a == 3) or (4) or (6). This produces an unexpected result because bool(4) and
bool(6) each evaluate to True

>>> a = 1
>>> if a == 3 or 4 or 6:
... print('yes')
... else:
... print('no')

yes

Again each comparison must be made separately

>>> if a == 3 or a == 4 or a == 6:
... print('yes')
... else:
... print('no')

no

Using the in operator is the canonical way to write this.

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>>> if a in (3, 4, 6):
... print('yes')
... else:
... print('no')

no

Section 14.5: Using the cmp function to get the comparison

result of two objects
Python 2 includes a cmp function which allows you to determine if one object is less than, equal to, or greater than
another object. This function can be used to pick a choice out of a list based on one of those three options.

Suppose you need to print 'greater than' if x > y, 'less than' if x < y and 'equal' if x == y.

['equal', 'greater than', 'less than', ][cmp(x,y)]

# x,y = 1,1 output: 'equal'

# x,y = 1,2 output: 'less than'
# x,y = 2,1 output: 'greater than'

cmp(x,y) returns the following values

Comparison Result
x<y -1
x == y 0
x>y 1

This function is removed on Python 3. You can use the cmp_to_key(func) helper function located in functools in
Python 3 to convert old comparison functions to key functions.

Section 14.6: Else statement

if condition:
body
else:
body

The else statement will execute it's body only if preceding conditional statements all evaluate to False.

if True:
print "It is true!"
else:
print "This won't get printed.."

# Output: It is true!

if False:
print "This won't get printed.."
else:
print "It is false!"

# Output: It is false!

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Section 14.7: Testing if an object is None and assigning it
You'll often want to assign something to an object if it is None, indicating it has not been assigned. We'll use aDate.

The simplest way to do this is to use the is None test.

if aDate is None:
aDate=datetime.date.today()

(Note that it is more Pythonic to say is None instead of == None.)

But this can be optimized slightly by exploiting the notion that not None will evaluate to True in a boolean
expression. The following code is equivalent:

if not aDate:
aDate=datetime.date.today()

But there is a more Pythonic way. The following code is also equivalent:

aDate=aDate or datetime.date.today()

This does a Short Circuit evaluation. If aDate is initialized and is not None, then it gets assigned to itself with no net
effect. If it is None, then the datetime.date.today() gets assigned to aDate.

Section 14.8: If statement

if condition:
body

The if statements checks the condition. If it evaluates to True, it executes the body of the if statement. If it
evaluates to False, it skips the body.

if True:
print "It is true!"
>> It is true!

if False:
print "This won't get printed.."

The condition can be any valid expression:

if 2 + 2 == 4:
print "I know math!"
>> I know math!

GoalKicker.com – Python® Notes for Professionals 84

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Chapter 15: Comparisons
Parameter Details
x First item to be compared
y Second item to be compared

Section 15.1: Chain Comparisons

You can compare multiple items with multiple comparison operators with chain comparison. For example

x > y > z

is just a short form of:

x > y and y > z

This will evaluate to True only if both comparisons are True.

The general form is

a OP b OP c OP d ...

Where OP represents one of the multiple comparison operations you can use, and the letters represent arbitrary
valid expressions.

Note that 0 != 1 != 0 evaluates to True, even though 0 != 0 is False. Unlike the common mathematical
notation in which x != y != z means that x, y and z have different values. Chaining == operations has
the natural meaning in most cases, since equality is generally transitive.

Style

There is no theoretical limit on how many items and comparison operations you use as long you have proper
syntax:

1 > -1 < 2 > 0.5 < 100 != 24

The above returns True if each comparison returns True. However, using convoluted chaining is not a good style. A
good chaining will be "directional", not more complicated than

1 > x > -4 > y != 8

Side effects

As soon as one comparison returns False, the expression evaluates immediately to False, skipping all remaining
comparisons.

Note that the expression exp in a > exp > b will be evaluated only once, whereas in the case of

a > exp and exp > b

exp will be computed twice if a > exp is true.

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Section 15.2: Comparison by `is` vs `==`
A common pitfall is confusing the equality comparison operators is and ==.

a == b compares the value of a and b.

a is b will compare the identities of a and b.

To illustrate:

a = 'Python is fun!'
b = 'Python is fun!'
a == b # returns True
a is b # returns False

a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
b = a # b references a
a == b # True
a is b # True
b = a[:] # b now references a copy of a
a == b # True
a is b # False [!!]

Basically, is can be thought of as shorthand for id(a) == id(b).

Beyond this, there are quirks of the run-time environment that further complicate things. Short strings and small
integers will return True when compared with is, due to the Python machine attempting to use less memory for
identical objects.

a = 'short'
b = 'short'
c = 5
d = 5
a is b # True
c is d # True

But longer strings and larger integers will be stored separately.

a = 'not so short'
b = 'not so short'
c = 1000
d = 1000
a is b # False
c is d # False

You should use is to test for None:

if myvar is not None:

# not None
pass
if myvar is None:
# None
pass

A use of is is to test for a “sentinel” (i.e. a unique object).

sentinel = object()
def myfunc(var=sentinel):

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 if var is sentinel:
# value wasn’t provided
pass
else:
# value was provided
pass

Section 15.3: Greater than or less than

x > y
x < y

These operators compare two types of values, they're the less than and greater than operators. For numbers this
simply compares the numerical values to see which is larger:

12 > 4
# True
12 < 4
# False
1 < 4
# True

For strings they will compare lexicographically, which is similar to alphabetical order but not quite the same.

"alpha" < "beta"

# True
"gamma" > "beta"
# True
"gamma" < "OMEGA"
# False

In these comparisons, lowercase letters are considered 'greater than' uppercase, which is why "gamma" < "OMEGA"
is false. If they were all uppercase it would return the expected alphabetical ordering result:

"GAMMA" < "OMEGA"

# True

Each type defines it's calculation with the < and > operators differently, so you should investigate what the
operators mean with a given type before using it.

Section 15.4: Not equal to

x != y

This returns True if x and y are not equal and otherwise returns False.

12 != 1
# True
12 != '12'
# True
'12' != '12'
# False

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Section 15.5: Equal To
x == y

This expression evaluates if x and y are the same value and returns the result as a boolean value. Generally both
type and value need to match, so the int 12 is not the same as the string '12'.

12 == 12
# True
12 == 1
# False
'12' == '12'
# True
'spam' == 'spam'
# True
'spam' == 'spam '
# False
'12' == 12
# False

Note that each type has to define a function that will be used to evaluate if two values are the same. For builtin
types these functions behave as you'd expect, and just evaluate things based on being the same value. However
custom types could define equality testing as whatever they'd like, including always returning True or always
returning False.

Section 15.6: Comparing Objects

In order to compare the equality of custom classes, you can override == and != by defining __eq__ and __ne__
methods. You can also override __lt__ (<), __le__ (<=), __gt__ (>), and __ge__ (>). Note that you only need to
override two comparison methods, and Python can handle the rest (== is the same as not < and not >, etc.)

class Foo(object):
def __init__(self, item):
self.my_item = item
def __eq__(self, other):
return self.my_item == other.my_item

a = Foo(5)
b = Foo(5)
a == b # True
a != b # False
a is b # False

Note that this simple comparison assumes that other (the object being compared to) is the same object type.
Comparing to another type will throw an error:

class Bar(object):
def __init__(self, item):
self.other_item = item
def __eq__(self, other):
return self.other_item == other.other_item
def __ne__(self, other):
return self.other_item != other.other_item

c = Bar(5)
a == c # throws AttributeError: 'Foo' object has no attribute 'other_item'

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Checking isinstance() or similar will help prevent this (if desired).

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Chapter 16: Loops
Parameter Details
boolean expression expression that can be evaluated in a boolean context, e.g. x < 10
variable variable name for the current element from the iterable
iterable anything that implements iterations

As one of the most basic functions in programming, loops are an important piece to nearly every programming
language. Loops enable developers to set certain portions of their code to repeat through a number of loops which
are referred to as iterations. This topic covers using multiple types of loops and applications of loops in Python.

Section 16.1: Break and Continue in Loops

break statement

When a break statement executes inside a loop, control flow "breaks" out of the loop immediately:

i = 0
while i < 7:
print(i)
if i == 4:
print("Breaking from loop")
break
i += 1

The loop conditional will not be evaluated after the break statement is executed. Note that break statements are
only allowed inside loops, syntactically. A break statement inside a function cannot be used to terminate loops that
called that function.

Executing the following prints every digit until number 4 when the break statement is met and the loop stops:

0
1
2
3
4
Breaking from loop

break statements can also be used inside for loops, the other looping construct provided by Python:

for i in (0, 1, 2, 3, 4):

print(i)
if i == 2:
break

Executing this loop now prints:

0
1
2

Note that 3 and 4 are not printed since the loop has ended.

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If a loop has an else clause, it does not execute when the loop is terminated through a break statement.

continue statement

A continue statement will skip to the next iteration of the loop bypassing the rest of the current block but
continuing the loop. As with break, continue can only appear inside loops:

for i in (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5):

if i == 2 or i == 4:
continue
print(i)

0
1
3
5

Note that 2 and 4 aren't printed, this is because continue goes to the next iteration instead of continuing on to
print(i) when i == 2 or i == 4.

Nested Loops

break and continue only operate on a single level of loop. The following example will only break out of the inner
for loop, not the outer while loop:

while True:
for i in range(1,5):
if i == 2:
break # Will only break out of the inner loop!

Python doesn't have the ability to break out of multiple levels of loop at once -- if this behavior is desired,
refactoring one or more loops into a function and replacing break with return may be the way to go.

Use return from within a function as a break

The return statement exits from a function, without executing the code that comes after it.

If you have a loop inside a function, using return from inside that loop is equivalent to having a break as the rest of
the code of the loop is not executed (note that any code after the loop is not executed either):

def break_loop():
for i in range(1, 5):
if (i == 2):
return(i)
print(i)
return(5)

If you have nested loops, the return statement will break all loops:

def break_all():
for j in range(1, 5):
for i in range(1,4):
if i*j == 6:
return(i)
print(i*j)

will output:

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1 # 1*1
2 # 1*2
3 # 1*3
4 # 1*4
2 # 2*1
4 # 2*2
# return because 2*3 = 6, the remaining iterations of both loops are not executed

Section 16.2: For loops

for loops iterate over a collection of items, such as list or dict, and run a block of code with each element from
the collection.

for i in [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]:

print(i)

The above for loop iterates over a list of numbers.

Each iteration sets the value of i to the next element of the list. So first it will be 0, then 1, then 2, etc. The output
will be as follow:

0
1
2
3
4

range is a function that returns a series of numbers under an iterable form, thus it can be used in for loops:

for i in range(5):
print(i)

gives the exact same result as the first for loop. Note that 5 is not printed as the range here is the first five
numbers counting from 0.

Iterable objects and iterators

for loop can iterate on any iterable object which is an object which defines a __getitem__ or a __iter__ function.
The __iter__ function returns an iterator, which is an object with a next function that is used to access the next
element of the iterable.

Section 16.3: Iterating over lists

To iterate through a list you can use for:

for x in ['one', 'two', 'three', 'four']:

print(x)

This will print out the elements of the list:

one
two
three
four

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The range function generates numbers which are also often used in a for loop.

for x in range(1, 6):

print(x)

The result will be a special range sequence type in python >=3 and a list in python <=2. Both can be looped through
using the for loop.

1
2
3
4
5

If you want to loop though both the elements of a list and have an index for the elements as well, you can use
Python's enumerate function:

for index, item in enumerate(['one', 'two', 'three', 'four']):

print(index, '::', item)

enumerate will generate tuples, which are unpacked into index (an integer) and item (the actual value from the list).
The above loop will print

(0, '::', 'one')

(1, '::', 'two')
(2, '::', 'three')
(3, '::', 'four')

Iterate over a list with value manipulation using map and lambda, i.e. apply lambda function on each element in the
list:

x = map(lambda e : e.upper(), ['one', 'two', 'three', 'four'])

print(x)

Output:

['ONE', 'TWO', 'THREE', 'FOUR'] # Python 2.x

NB: in Python 3.x map returns an iterator instead of a list so you in case you need a list you have to cast the result
print(list(x))

Section 16.4: Loops with an "else" clause

The for and while compound statements (loops) can optionally have an else clause (in practice, this usage is fairly
rare).

The else clause only executes after a for loop terminates by iterating to completion, or after a while loop
terminates by its conditional expression becoming false.

for i in range(3):
print(i)
else:
print('done')

i = 0

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while i < 3:
print(i)
i += 1
else:
print('done')

output:

0
1
2
done

The else clause does not execute if the loop terminates some other way (through a break statement or by raising
an exception):

for i in range(2):
print(i)
if i == 1:
break
else:
print('done')

output:

0
1

Most other programming languages lack this optional else clause of loops. The use of the keyword else in
particular is often considered confusing.

The original concept for such a clause dates back to Donald Knuth and the meaning of the else keyword becomes
clear if we rewrite a loop in terms of if statements and goto statements from earlier days before structured
programming or from a lower-level assembly language.

For example:

while loop_condition():
...
if break_condition():
break
...

is equivalent to:

# pseudocode

<<start>>:
if loop_condition():
...
if break_condition():
goto <<end>>
...
goto <<start>>

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<<end>>:

These remain equivalent if we attach an else clause to each of them.

For example:

while loop_condition():
...
if break_condition():
break
...
else:
print('done')

is equivalent to:

# pseudocode

<<start>>:
if loop_condition():
...
if break_condition():
goto <<end>>
...
goto <<start>>
else:
print('done')

<<end>>:

A for loop with an else clause can be understood the same way. Conceptually, there is a loop condition that
remains True as long as the iterable object or sequence still has some remaining elements.

Why would one use this strange construct?

The main use case for the for...else construct is a concise implementation of search as for instance:

a = [1, 2, 3, 4]
for i in a:
if type(i) is not int:
print(i)
break
else:
print("no exception")

To make the else in this construct less confusing one can think of it as "if not break" or "if not found".

Some discussions on this can be found in [Python-ideas] Summary of for...else threads, Why does python use 'else'
after for and while loops? , and Else Clauses on Loop Statements

Section 16.5: The Pass Statement

pass is a null statement for when a statement is required by Python syntax (such as within the body of a for or
while loop), but no action is required or desired by the programmer. This can be useful as a placeholder for code
that is yet to be written.

for x in range(10):

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 pass #we don't want to do anything, or are not ready to do anything here, so we'll pass

In this example, nothing will happen. The for loop will complete without error, but no commands or code will be
actioned. pass allows us to run our code successfully without having all commands and action fully implemented.

Similarly, pass can be used in while loops, as well as in selections and function definitions etc.

while x == y:
pass

Section 16.6: Iterating over dictionaries

Considering the following dictionary:

d = {"a": 1, "b": 2, "c": 3}

To iterate through its keys, you can use:

for key in d:
print(key)

Output:

"a"
"b"
"c"

This is equivalent to:

for key in d.keys():

print(key)

or in Python 2:

for key in d.iterkeys():

print(key)

To iterate through its values, use:

for value in d.values():

print(value)

Output:

1
2
3

To iterate through its keys and values, use:

for key, value in d.items():

print(key, "::", value)

Output:

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a :: 1
b :: 2
c :: 3

Note that in Python 2, .keys(), .values() and .items() return a list object. If you simply need to iterate through
the result, you can use the equivalent .iterkeys(), .itervalues() and .iteritems().

The difference between .keys() and .iterkeys(), .values() and .itervalues(), .items() and .iteritems() is
that the iter* methods are generators. Thus, the elements within the dictionary are yielded one by one as they are
evaluated. When a list object is returned, all of the elements are packed into a list and then returned for further
evaluation.

Note also that in Python 3, Order of items printed in the above manner does not follow any order.

Section 16.7: The "half loop" do-while

Unlike other languages, Python doesn't have a do-until or a do-while construct (this will allow code to be executed
once before the condition is tested). However, you can combine a while True with a break to achieve the same
purpose.

a = 10
while True:
a = a-1
print(a)
if a<7:
break
print('Done.')

This will print:

9
8
7
6
Done.

Section 16.8: Looping and Unpacking

If you want to loop over a list of tuples for example:

collection = [('a', 'b', 'c'), ('x', 'y', 'z'), ('1', '2', '3')]

instead of doing something like this:

for item in collection:

i1 = item[0]
i2 = item[1]
i3 = item[2]
# logic

or something like this:

for item in collection:

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 i1, i2, i3 = item
# logic

You can simply do this:

for i1, i2, i3 in collection:

# logic

This will also work for most types of iterables, not just tuples.

Section 16.9: Iterating dierent portion of a list with dierent

step size
Suppose you have a long list of elements and you are only interested in every other element of the list. Perhaps you
only want to examine the first or last elements, or a specific range of entries in your list. Python has strong indexing
built-in capabilities. Here are some examples of how to achieve these scenarios.

Here's a simple list that will be used throughout the examples:

lst = ['alpha', 'bravo', 'charlie', 'delta', 'echo']

Iteration over the whole list

To iterate over each element in the list, a for loop like below can be used:

for s in lst:
print s[:1] # print the first letter

The for loop assigns s for each element of lst. This will print:

a
b
c
d
e

Often you need both the element and the index of that element. The enumerate keyword performs that task.

for idx, s in enumerate(lst):

print("%s has an index of %d" % (s, idx))

The index idx will start with zero and increment for each iteration, while the s will contain the element being
processed. The previous snippet will output:

alpha has an index of 0

bravo has an index of 1
charlie has an index of 2
delta has an index of 3
echo has an index of 4

Iterate over sub-list

If we want to iterate over a range (remembering that Python uses zero-based indexing), use the range keyword.

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for i in range(2,4):
print("lst at %d contains %s" % (i, lst[i]))

This would output:

lst at 2 contains charlie

lst at 3 contains delta

The list may also be sliced. The following slice notation goes from element at index 1 to the end with a step of 2.
The two for loops give the same result.

for s in lst[1::2]:
print(s)

for i in range(1, len(lst), 2):

print(lst[i])

The above snippet outputs:

bravo
delta

Indexing and slicing is a topic of its own.

Section 16.10: While Loop

A while loop will cause the loop statements to be executed until the loop condition is falsey. The following code will
execute the loop statements a total of 4 times.

i = 0
while i < 4:
#loop statements
i = i + 1

While the above loop can easily be translated into a more elegant for loop, while loops are useful for checking if
some condition has been met. The following loop will continue to execute until myObject is ready.

myObject = anObject()
while myObject.isNotReady():
myObject.tryToGetReady()

while loops can also run without a condition by using numbers (complex or real) or True:

import cmath

complex_num = cmath.sqrt(-1)
while complex_num: # You can also replace complex_num with any number, True or a value of any
type
print(complex_num) # Prints 1j forever

If the condition is always true the while loop will run forever (infinite loop) if it is not terminated by a break or return
statement or an exception.

while True:
print "Infinite loop"

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# Infinite loop
# Infinite loop
# Infinite loop
# ...

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Chapter 17: Arrays
Parameter Details
b Represents signed integer of size 1 byte
B Represents unsigned integer of size 1 byte
c Represents character of size 1 byte
u Represents unicode character of size 2 bytes
h Represents signed integer of size 2 bytes
H Represents unsigned integer of size 2 bytes
i Represents signed integer of size 2 bytes
I Represents unsigned integer of size 2 bytes
w Represents unicode character of size 4 bytes
l Represents signed integer of size 4 bytes
L Represents unsigned integer of size 4 bytes
f Represents floating point of size 4 bytes
d Represents floating point of size 8 bytes
"Arrays" in Python are not the arrays in conventional programming languages like C and Java, but closer to lists. A
list can be a collection of either homogeneous or heterogeneous elements, and may contain ints, strings or other
lists.

Section 17.1: Access individual elements through indexes

Individual elements can be accessed through indexes. Python arrays are zero-indexed. Here is an example:

my_array = array('i', [1,2,3,4,5])

print(my_array[1])
# 2
print(my_array[2])
# 3
print(my_array[0])
# 1

Section 17.2: Basic Introduction to Arrays

An array is a data structure that stores values of same data type. In Python, this is the main difference between
arrays and lists.

While python lists can contain values corresponding to different data types, arrays in python can only contain
values corresponding to same data type. In this tutorial, we will understand the Python arrays with few examples.

If you are new to Python, get started with the Python Introduction article.

To use arrays in python language, you need to import the standard array module. This is because array is not a
fundamental data type like strings, integer etc. Here is how you can import array module in python :

from array import *

Once you have imported the array module, you can declare an array. Here is how you do it:

arrayIdentifierName = array(typecode, [Initializers])

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In the declaration above, arrayIdentifierName is the name of array, typecode lets python know the type of array
and Initializers are the values with which array is initialized.

Typecodes are the codes that are used to define the type of array values or the type of array. The table in the
parameters section shows the possible values you can use when declaring an array and it's type.

Here is a real world example of python array declaration :

my_array = array('i',[1,2,3,4])

In the example above, typecode used is i. This typecode represents signed integer whose size is 2 bytes.

Here is a simple example of an array containing 5 integers

from array import *

my_array = array('i', [1,2,3,4,5])
for i in my_array:
print(i)
# 1
# 2
# 3
# 4
# 5

Section 17.3: Append any value to the array using append()

method
my_array = array('i', [1,2,3,4,5])
my_array.append(6)
# array('i', [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6])

Note that the value 6 was appended to the existing array values.

Section 17.4: Insert value in an array using insert() method

We can use the insert() method to insert a value at any index of the array. Here is an example :

my_array = array('i', [1,2,3,4,5])

my_array.insert(0,0)
#array('i', [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5])

In the above example, the value 0 was inserted at index 0. Note that the first argument is the index while second
argument is the value.

Section 17.5: Extend python array using extend() method

A python array can be extended with more than one value using extend() method. Here is an example :

my_array = array('i', [1,2,3,4,5])

my_extnd_array = array('i', [7,8,9,10])
my_array.extend(my_extnd_array)
# array('i', [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10])

We see that the array my_array was extended with values from my_extnd_array.

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Section 17.6: Add items from list into array using fromlist()
method
Here is an example:

my_array = array('i', [1,2,3,4,5])

c=[11,12,13]
my_array.fromlist(c)
# array('i', [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 11, 12, 13])

So we see that the values 11,12 and 13 were added from list c to my_array.

Section 17.7: Remove any array element using remove()

method
Here is an example :

my_array = array('i', [1,2,3,4,5])

my_array.remove(4)
# array('i', [1, 2, 3, 5])

We see that the element 4 was removed from the array.

Section 17.8: Remove last array element using pop() method

pop removes the last element from the array. Here is an example :

my_array = array('i', [1,2,3,4,5])

my_array.pop()
# array('i', [1, 2, 3, 4])

So we see that the last element (5) was popped out of array.

Section 17.9: Fetch any element through its index using index()
method
index() returns first index of the matching value. Remember that arrays are zero-indexed.

my_array = array('i', [1,2,3,4,5])

print(my_array.index(5))
# 5
my_array = array('i', [1,2,3,3,5])
print(my_array.index(3))
# 3

Note in that second example that only one index was returned, even though the value exists twice in the array

Section 17.10: Reverse a python array using reverse() method

The reverse() method does what the name says it will do - reverses the array. Here is an example :

my_array = array('i', [1,2,3,4,5])

my_array.reverse()
# array('i', [5, 4, 3, 2, 1])

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Section 17.11: Get array buer information through
buer_info() method
This method provides you the array buffer start address in memory and number of elements in array. Here is an
example:

my_array = array('i', [1,2,3,4,5])

my_array.buffer_info()
(33881712, 5)

Section 17.12: Check for number of occurrences of an element

using count() method
count() will return the number of times and element appears in an array. In the following example we see that the
value 3 occurs twice.

my_array = array('i', [1,2,3,3,5])

my_array.count(3)
# 2

Section 17.13: Convert array to string using tostring() method

tostring() converts the array to a string.

my_char_array = array('c', ['g','e','e','k'])

# array('c', 'geek')
print(my_char_array.tostring())
# geek

Section 17.14: Convert array to a python list with same

elements using tolist() method
When you need a Python list object, you can utilize the tolist() method to convert your array to a list.

my_array = array('i', [1,2,3,4,5])

c = my_array.tolist()
# [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Section 17.15: Append a string to char array using fromstring()

method
You are able to append a string to a character array using fromstring()

my_char_array = array('c', ['g','e','e','k'])

my_char_array.fromstring("stuff")
print(my_char_array)
#array('c', 'geekstuff')

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Chapter 18: Multidimensional arrays
Section 18.1: Lists in lists
A good way to visualize a 2d array is as a list of lists. Something like this:

lst=[[1,2,3],[4,5,6],[7,8,9]]

here the outer list lst has three things in it. each of those things is another list: The first one is: [1,2,3], the second
one is: [4,5,6] and the third one is: [7,8,9]. You can access these lists the same way you would access another
other element of a list, like this:

print (lst[0])
#output: [1, 2, 3]

print (lst[1])
#output: [4, 5, 6]

print (lst[2])
#output: [7, 8, 9]

You can then access the different elements in each of those lists the same way:

print (lst[0][0])
#output: 1

print (lst[0][1])
#output: 2

Here the first number inside the [] brackets means get the list in that position. In the above example we used the
number 0 to mean get the list in the 0th position which is [1,2,3]. The second set of [] brackets means get the
item in that position from the inner list. In this case we used both 0 and 1 the 0th position in the list we got is the
number 1 and in the 1st position it is 2

You can also set values inside these lists the same way:

lst[0]=[10,11,12]

Now the list is [[10,11,12],[4,5,6],[7,8,9]]. In this example we changed the whole first list to be a completely
new list.

lst[1][2]=15

Now the list is [[10,11,12],[4,5,15],[7,8,9]]. In this example we changed a single element inside of one of the
inner lists. First we went into the list at position 1 and changed the element within it at position 2, which was 6 now
it's 15.

Section 18.2: Lists in lists in lists in..

This behaviour can be extended. Here is a 3-dimensional array:

[[[111,112,113],[121,122,123],[131,132,133]],[[211,212,213],[221,222,223],[231,232,233]],[[311,312,
313],[321,322,323],[331,332,333]]]

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As is probably obvious, this gets a bit hard to read. Use backslashes to break up the different dimensions:

[[[111,112,113],[121,122,123],[131,132,133]],\
[[211,212,213],[221,222,223],[231,232,233]],\
[[311,312,313],[321,322,323],[331,332,333]]]

By nesting the lists like this, you can extend to arbitrarily high dimensions.

Accessing is similar to 2D arrays:

print(myarray)
print(myarray[1])
print(myarray[2][1])
print(myarray[1][0][2])
etc.

And editing is also similar:

myarray[1]=new_n-1_d_list
myarray[2][1]=new_n-2_d_list
myarray[1][0][2]=new_n-3_d_list #or a single number if you're dealing with 3D arrays
etc.

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Chapter 19: Dictionary
Parameter Details
key The desired key to lookup
value The value to set or return

Section 19.1: Introduction to Dictionary

A dictionary is an example of a key value store also known as Mapping in Python. It allows you to store and retrieve
elements by referencing a key. As dictionaries are referenced by key, they have very fast lookups. As they are
primarily used for referencing items by key, they are not sorted.

creating a dict

Dictionaries can be initiated in many ways:

literal syntax
d = {} # empty dict
d = {'key': 'value'} # dict with initial values

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.5

# Also unpacking one or multiple dictionaries with the literal syntax is possible

# makes a shallow copy of otherdict

d = {**otherdict}
# also updates the shallow copy with the contents of the yetanotherdict.
d = {**otherdict, **yetanotherdict}

dict comprehension
d = {k:v for k,v in [('key', 'value',)]}

see also: Comprehensions

built-in class: dict()

d = dict() # empty dict
d = dict(key='value') # explicit keyword arguments
d = dict([('key', 'value')]) # passing in a list of key/value pairs
# make a shallow copy of another dict (only possible if keys are only strings!)
d = dict(**otherdict)

modifying a dict

To add items to a dictionary, simply create a new key with a value:

d['newkey'] = 42

It also possible to add list and dictionary as value:

d['new_list'] = [1, 2, 3]
d['new_dict'] = {'nested_dict': 1}

To delete an item, delete the key from the dictionary:

del d['newkey']

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Section 19.2: Avoiding KeyError Exceptions
One common pitfall when using dictionaries is to access a non-existent key. This typically results in a KeyError
exception

mydict = {}
mydict['not there']

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
KeyError: 'not there'

One way to avoid key errors is to use the dict.get method, which allows you to specify a default value to return in
the case of an absent key.

value = mydict.get(key, default_value)

Which returns mydict[key] if it exists, but otherwise returns default_value. Note that this doesn't add key to
mydict. So if you want to retain that key value pair, you should use mydict.setdefault(key, default_value),
which does store the key value pair.

mydict = {}
print(mydict)
# {}
print(mydict.get("foo", "bar"))
# bar
print(mydict)
# {}
print(mydict.setdefault("foo", "bar"))
# bar
print(mydict)
# {'foo': 'bar'}

An alternative way to deal with the problem is catching the exception

try:
value = mydict[key]
except KeyError:
value = default_value

You could also check if the key is in the dictionary.

if key in mydict:
value = mydict[key]
else:
value = default_value

Do note, however, that in multi-threaded environments it is possible for the key to be removed from the dictionary
after you check, creating a race condition where the exception can still be thrown.

Another option is to use a subclass of dict, collections.defaultdict, that has a default_factory to create new entries in
the dict when given a new_key.

Section 19.3: Iterating Over a Dictionary

If you use a dictionary as an iterator (e.g. in a for statement), it traverses the keys of the dictionary. For example:

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d = {'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c':3}
for key in d:
print(key, d[key])
# c 3
# b 2
# a 1

The same is true when used in a comprehension

print([key for key in d])

# ['c', 'b', 'a']

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.0

The items() method can be used to loop over both the key and value simultaneously:

for key, value in d.items():

print(key, value)
# c 3
# b 2
# a 1

While the values() method can be used to iterate over only the values, as would be expected:

for key, value in d.values():

print(key, value)
# 3
# 2
# 1

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.2

Here, the methods keys(), values() and items() return lists, and there are the three extra methods iterkeys()
itervalues() and iteritems() to return iterators.

Section 19.4: Dictionary with default values

Available in the standard library as defaultdict

from collections import defaultdict

d = defaultdict(int)
d['key'] # 0
d['key'] = 5
d['key'] # 5

d = defaultdict(lambda: 'empty')
d['key'] # 'empty'
d['key'] = 'full'
d['key'] # 'full'

[*] Alternatively, if you must use the built-in dict class, using dict.setdefault() will allow you to create a default
whenever you access a key that did not exist before:

>>> d = {}
{}
>>> d.setdefault('Another_key', []).append("This worked!")
>>> d

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{'Another_key': ['This worked!']}

Keep in mind that if you have many values to add, dict.setdefault() will create a new instance of the initial value
(in this example a []) every time it's called - which may create unnecessary workloads.

[*] Python Cookbook, 3rd edition, by David Beazley and Brian K. Jones (O’Reilly). Copyright 2013 David Beazley and Brian
Jones, 978-1-449-34037-7.

Section 19.5: Merging dictionaries

Consider the following dictionaries:

>>> fish = {'name': "Nemo", 'hands': "fins", 'special': "gills"}

>>> dog = {'name': "Clifford", 'hands': "paws", 'color': "red"}

Python 3.5+
>>> fishdog = {**fish, **dog}
>>> fishdog
{'hands': 'paws', 'color': 'red', 'name': 'Clifford', 'special': 'gills'}

As this example demonstrates, duplicate keys map to their lattermost value (for example "Clifford" overrides
"Nemo").

Python 3.3+
>>> from collections import ChainMap
>>> dict(ChainMap(fish, dog))
{'hands': 'fins', 'color': 'red', 'special': 'gills', 'name': 'Nemo'}

With this technique the foremost value takes precedence for a given key rather than the last ("Clifford" is thrown
out in favor of "Nemo").

Python 2.x, 3.x

>>> from itertools import chain
>>> dict(chain(fish.items(), dog.items()))
{'hands': 'paws', 'color': 'red', 'name': 'Clifford', 'special': 'gills'}

This uses the lattermost value, as with the **-based technique for merging ("Clifford" overrides "Nemo").

>>> fish.update(dog)
>>> fish
{'color': 'red', 'hands': 'paws', 'name': 'Clifford', 'special': 'gills'}

dict.update uses the latter dict to overwrite the previous one.

Section 19.6: Accessing keys and values

When working with dictionaries, it's often necessary to access all the keys and values in the dictionary, either in a
for loop, a list comprehension, or just as a plain list.

Given a dictionary like:

mydict = {
'a': '1',

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 'b': '2'
}

You can get a list of keys using the keys() method:

print(mydict.keys())
# Python2: ['a', 'b']
# Python3: dict_keys(['b', 'a'])

If instead you want a list of values, use the values() method:

print(mydict.values())
# Python2: ['1', '2']
# Python3: dict_values(['2', '1'])

If you want to work with both the key and its corresponding value, you can use the items() method:

print(mydict.items())
# Python2: [('a', '1'), ('b', '2')]
# Python3: dict_items([('b', '2'), ('a', '1')])

NOTE: Because a dict is unsorted, keys(), values(), and items() have no sort order. Use sort(), sorted(), or an
OrderedDict if you care about the order that these methods return.

Python 2/3 Difference: In Python 3, these methods return special iterable objects, not lists, and are the equivalent
of the Python 2 iterkeys(), itervalues(), and iteritems() methods. These objects can be used like lists for the
most part, though there are some differences. See PEP 3106 for more details.

Section 19.7: Accessing values of a dictionary

dictionary = {"Hello": 1234, "World": 5678}
print(dictionary["Hello"])

The above code will print 1234.

The string "Hello" in this example is called a key. It is used to lookup a value in the dict by placing the key in
square brackets.

The number 1234 is seen after the respective colon in the dict definition. This is called the value that "Hello" maps
to in this dict.

Looking up a value like this with a key that does not exist will raise a KeyError exception, halting execution if
uncaught. If we want to access a value without risking a KeyError, we can use the dictionary.get method. By
default if the key does not exist, the method will return None. We can pass it a second value to return instead of
None in the event of a failed lookup.

w = dictionary.get("whatever")
x = dictionary.get("whatever", "nuh-uh")

In this example w will get the value None and x will get the value "nuh-uh".

Section 19.8: Creating a dictionary

Rules for creating a dictionary:

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 Every key must be unique (otherwise it will be overridden)
Every key must be hashable (can use the hash function to hash it; otherwise TypeError will be thrown)
There is no particular order for the keys.

# Creating and populating it with values

stock = {'eggs': 5, 'milk': 2}

# Or creating an empty dictionary

dictionary = {}

# And populating it after

dictionary['eggs'] = 5
dictionary['milk'] = 2

# Values can also be lists

mydict = {'a': [1, 2, 3], 'b': ['one', 'two', 'three']}

# Use list.append() method to add new elements to the values list

mydict['a'].append(4) # => {'a': [1, 2, 3, 4], 'b': ['one', 'two', 'three']}
mydict['b'].append('four') # => {'a': [1, 2, 3, 4], 'b': ['one', 'two', 'three', 'four']}

# We can also create a dictionary using a list of two-items tuples

iterable = [('eggs', 5), ('milk', 2)]
dictionary = dict(iterables)

# Or using keyword argument:

dictionary = dict(eggs=5, milk=2)

# Another way will be to use the dict.fromkeys:

dictionary = dict.fromkeys((milk, eggs)) # => {'milk': None, 'eggs': None}
dictionary = dict.fromkeys((milk, eggs), (2, 5)) # => {'milk': 2, 'eggs': 5}

Section 19.9: Creating an ordered dictionary

You can create an ordered dictionary which will follow a determined order when iterating over the keys in the
dictionary.

Use OrderedDict from the collections module. This will always return the dictionary elements in the original
insertion order when iterated over.

from collections import OrderedDict

d = OrderedDict()
d['first'] = 1
d['second'] = 2
d['third'] = 3
d['last'] = 4

# Outputs "first 1", "second 2", "third 3", "last 4"

for key in d:
print(key, d[key])

Section 19.10: Unpacking dictionaries using the ** operator

You can use the ** keyword argument unpacking operator to deliver the key-value pairs in a dictionary into a
function's arguments. A simplified example from the official documentation:

>>>

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>>> def parrot(voltage, state, action):
... print("This parrot wouldn't", action, end=' ')
... print("if you put", voltage, "volts through it.", end=' ')
... print("E's", state, "!")
...
>>> d = {"voltage": "four million", "state": "bleedin' demised", "action": "VOOM"}
>>> parrot(**d)

This parrot wouldn't VOOM if you put four million volts through it. E's bleedin' demised !

As of Python 3.5 you can also use this syntax to merge an arbitrary number of dict objects.

>>> fish = {'name': "Nemo", 'hands': "fins", 'special': "gills"}

>>> dog = {'name': "Clifford", 'hands': "paws", 'color': "red"}
>>> fishdog = {**fish, **dog}
>>> fishdog

{'hands': 'paws', 'color': 'red', 'name': 'Clifford', 'special': 'gills'}

As this example demonstrates, duplicate keys map to their lattermost value (for example "Clifford" overrides
"Nemo").

Section 19.11: The trailing comma

Like lists and tuples, you can include a trailing comma in your dictionary.

role = {"By day": "A typical programmer",

"By night": "Still a typical programmer", }

PEP 8 dictates that you should leave a space between the trailing comma and the closing brace.

Section 19.12: The dict() constructor

The dict() constructor can be used to create dictionaries from keyword arguments, or from a single iterable of
key-value pairs, or from a single dictionary and keyword arguments.

dict(a=1, b=2, c=3) # {'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3}

dict([('d', 4), ('e', 5), ('f', 6)]) # {'d': 4, 'e': 5, 'f': 6}
dict([('a', 1)], b=2, c=3) # {'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3}
dict({'a' : 1, 'b' : 2}, c=3) # {'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3}

Section 19.13: Dictionaries Example

Dictionaries map keys to values.

car = {}
car["wheels"] = 4
car["color"] = "Red"
car["model"] = "Corvette"

Dictionary values can be accessed by their keys.

print "Little " + car["color"] + " " + car["model"] + "!"

# This would print out "Little Red Corvette!"

Dictionaries can also be created in a JSON style:

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car = {"wheels": 4, "color": "Red", "model": "Corvette"}

Dictionary values can be iterated over:

for key in car:

print key + ": " + car[key]

# wheels: 4
# color: Red
# model: Corvette

Section 19.14: All combinations of dictionary values

options = {
"x": ["a", "b"],
"y": [10, 20, 30]
}

Given a dictionary such as the one shown above, where there is a list representing a set of values to explore for the
corresponding key. Suppose you want to explore "x"="a" with "y"=10, then "x"="a" with"y"=10, and so on until
you have explored all possible combinations.

You can create a list that returns all such combinations of values using the following code.

import itertools

options = {
"x": ["a", "b"],
"y": [10, 20, 30]}

keys = options.keys()
values = (options[key] for key in keys)
combinations = [dict(zip(keys, combination)) for combination in itertools.product(*values)]
print combinations

This gives us the following list stored in the variable combinations:

[{'x': 'a', 'y': 10},

{'x': 'b', 'y': 10},
{'x': 'a', 'y': 20},
{'x': 'b', 'y': 20},
{'x': 'a', 'y': 30},
{'x': 'b', 'y': 30}]

GoalKicker.com – Python® Notes for Professionals 115

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Chapter 20: List
The Python List is a general data structure widely used in Python programs. They are found in other languages,
often referred to as dynamic arrays. They are both mutable and a sequence data type that allows them to be indexed
and sliced. The list can contain different types of objects, including other list objects.

Section 20.1: List methods and supported operators

Starting with a given list a:

a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

1. append(value) – appends a new element to the end of the list.

# Append values 6, 7, and 7 to the list

a.append(6)
a.append(7)
a.append(7)
# a: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7]

# Append another list

b = [8, 9]
a.append(b)
# a: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, [8, 9]]

# Append an element of a different type, as list elements do not need to have the same type
my_string = "hello world"
a.append(my_string)
# a: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, [8, 9], "hello world"]

Note that the append() method only appends one new element to the end of the list. If you append a list to
another list, the list that you append becomes a single element at the end of the first list.

# Appending a list to another list

a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7]
b = [8, 9]
a.append(b)
# a: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, [8, 9]]
a[8]
# Returns: [8,9]

2. extend(enumerable) – extends the list by appending elements from another enumerable.

a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7]
b = [8, 9, 10]

# Extend list by appending all elements from b

a.extend(b)
# a: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10]

# Extend list with elements from a non-list enumerable:

a.extend(range(3))
# a: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10, 0, 1, 2]

Lists can also be concatenated with the + operator. Note that this does not modify any of the original lists:

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 a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] + [7, 7] + b
# a: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10]

3. index(value, [startIndex]) – gets the index of the first occurrence of the input value. If the input value is
not in the list a ValueError exception is raised. If a second argument is provided, the search is started at that
specified index.

a.index(7)
# Returns: 6

a.index(49) # ValueError, because 49 is not in a.

a.index(7, 7)
# Returns: 7

a.index(7, 8) # ValueError, because there is no 7 starting at index 8

4. insert(index, value) – inserts value just before the specified index. Thus after the insertion the new
element occupies position index.

a.insert(0, 0) # insert 0 at position 0

a.insert(2, 5) # insert 5 at position 2
# a: [0, 1, 5, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10]

5. pop([index]) – removes and returns the item at index. With no argument it removes and returns the last
element of the list.

a.pop(2)
# Returns: 5
# a: [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10]
a.pop(8)
# Returns: 7
# a: [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

# With no argument:
a.pop()
# Returns: 10
# a: [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

6. remove(value) – removes the first occurrence of the specified value. If the provided value cannot be found, a
ValueError is raised.

a.remove(0)
a.remove(9)
# a: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]
a.remove(10)
# ValueError, because 10 is not in a

7. reverse() – reverses the list in-place and returns None.

a.reverse()
# a: [8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1]

There are also other ways of reversing a list.

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 8. count(value) – counts the number of occurrences of some value in the list.

a.count(7)
# Returns: 2

9. sort() – sorts the list in numerical and lexicographical order and returns None.

a.sort()
# a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]
# Sorts the list in numerical order

Lists can also be reversed when sorted using the reverse=True flag in the sort() method.

a.sort(reverse=True)
# a = [8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1]

If you want to sort by attributes of items, you can use the key keyword argument:

import datetime

class Person(object):
def __init__(self, name, birthday, height):
self.name = name
self.birthday = birthday
self.height = height

def __repr__(self):
return self.name

l = [Person("John Cena", datetime.date(1992, 9, 12), 175),

Person("Chuck Norris", datetime.date(1990, 8, 28), 180),
Person("Jon Skeet", datetime.date(1991, 7, 6), 185)]

l.sort(key=lambda item: item.name)

# l: [Chuck Norris, John Cena, Jon Skeet]

l.sort(key=lambda item: item.birthday)

# l: [Chuck Norris, Jon Skeet, John Cena]

l.sort(key=lambda item: item.height)

# l: [John Cena, Chuck Norris, Jon Skeet]

In case of list of dicts the concept is the same:

import datetime

l = [{'name':'John Cena', 'birthday': datetime.date(1992, 9, 12),'height': 175},

{'name': 'Chuck Norris', 'birthday': datetime.date(1990, 8, 28),'height': 180},
{'name': 'Jon Skeet', 'birthday': datetime.date(1991, 7, 6), 'height': 185}]

l.sort(key=lambda item: item['name'])

# l: [Chuck Norris, John Cena, Jon Skeet]

l.sort(key=lambda item: item['birthday'])

# l: [Chuck Norris, Jon Skeet, John Cena]

l.sort(key=lambda item: item['height'])

# l: [John Cena, Chuck Norris, Jon Skeet]

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 Sort by sub dict:

import datetime

l = [{'name':'John Cena', 'birthday': datetime.date(1992, 9, 12),'size': {'height': 175,

'weight': 100}},
{'name': 'Chuck Norris', 'birthday': datetime.date(1990, 8, 28),'size' : {'height': 180,
'weight': 90}},
{'name': 'Jon Skeet', 'birthday': datetime.date(1991, 7, 6), 'size': {'height': 185,
'weight': 110}}]

l.sort(key=lambda item: item['size']['height'])

# l: [John Cena, Chuck Norris, Jon Skeet]

Better way to sort using attrgetter and itemgetter

Lists can also be sorted using attrgetter and itemgetter functions from the operator module. These can help
improve readability and reusability. Here are some examples,

from operator import itemgetter,attrgetter

people = [{'name':'chandan','age':20,'salary':2000},
{'name':'chetan','age':18,'salary':5000},
{'name':'guru','age':30,'salary':3000}]
by_age = itemgetter('age')
by_salary = itemgetter('salary')

people.sort(key=by_age) #in-place sorting by age

people.sort(key=by_salary) #in-place sorting by salary

itemgetter can also be given an index. This is helpful if you want to sort based on indices of a tuple.

list_of_tuples = [(1,2), (3,4), (5,0)]

list_of_tuples.sort(key=itemgetter(1))
print(list_of_tuples) #[(5, 0), (1, 2), (3, 4)]

Use the attrgetter if you want to sort by attributes of an object,

persons = [Person("John Cena", datetime.date(1992, 9, 12), 175),

Person("Chuck Norris", datetime.date(1990, 8, 28), 180),
Person("Jon Skeet", datetime.date(1991, 7, 6), 185)] #reusing Person class from above
example

person.sort(key=attrgetter('name')) #sort by name

by_birthday = attrgetter('birthday')
person.sort(key=by_birthday) #sort by birthday

10. clear() – removes all items from the list

a.clear()
# a = []

11. Replication – multiplying an existing list by an integer will produce a larger list consisting of that many copies
of the original. This can be useful for example for list initialization:

b = ["blah"] * 3
# b = ["blah", "blah", "blah"]

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 b = [1, 3, 5] * 5
# [1, 3, 5, 1, 3, 5, 1, 3, 5, 1, 3, 5, 1, 3, 5]

Take care doing this if your list contains references to objects (eg a list of lists), see Common Pitfalls - List
multiplication and common references.

12. Element deletion – it is possible to delete multiple elements in the list using the del keyword and slice
notation:

a = list(range(10))
del a[::2]
# a = [1, 3, 5, 7, 9]
del a[-1]
# a = [1, 3, 5, 7]
del a[:]
# a = []

13. Copying

The default assignment "=" assigns a reference of the original list to the new name. That is, the original name
and new name are both pointing to the same list object. Changes made through any of them will be reflected
in another. This is often not what you intended.

b = a
a.append(6)
# b: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

If you want to create a copy of the list you have below options.

You can slice it:

new_list = old_list[:]

You can use the built in list() function:

new_list = list(old_list)

You can use generic copy.copy():

import copy
new_list = copy.copy(old_list) #inserts references to the objects found in the original.

This is a little slower than list() because it has to find out the datatype of old_list first.

If the list contains objects and you want to copy them as well, use generic copy.deepcopy():

import copy
new_list = copy.deepcopy(old_list) #inserts copies of the objects found in the original.

Obviously the slowest and most memory-needing method, but sometimes unavoidable.

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.0

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copy() – Returns a shallow copy of the list

aa = a.copy()
# aa = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Section 20.2: Accessing list values

Python lists are zero-indexed, and act like arrays in other languages.

lst = [1, 2, 3, 4]
lst[0] # 1
lst[1] # 2

Attempting to access an index outside the bounds of the list will raise an IndexError.

lst[4] # IndexError: list index out of range

Negative indices are interpreted as counting from the end of the list.

lst[-1] # 4
lst[-2] # 3
lst[-5] # IndexError: list index out of range

This is functionally equivalent to

lst[len(lst)-1] # 4

Lists allow to use slice notation as lst[start:end:step]. The output of the slice notation is a new list containing
elements from index start to end-1. If options are omitted start defaults to beginning of list, end to end of list and
step to 1:

lst[1:] # [2, 3, 4]
lst[:3] # [1, 2, 3]
lst[::2] # [1, 3]
lst[::-1] # [4, 3, 2, 1]
lst[-1:0:-1] # [4, 3, 2]
lst[5:8] # [] since starting index is greater than length of lst, returns empty list
lst[1:10] # [2, 3, 4] same as omitting ending index

With this in mind, you can print a reversed version of the list by calling

lst[::-1] # [4, 3, 2, 1]

When using step lengths of negative amounts, the starting index has to be greater than the ending index otherwise
the result will be an empty list.

lst[3:1:-1] # [4, 3]

Using negative step indices are equivalent to the following code:

reversed(lst)[0:2] # 0 = 1 -1
# 2 = 3 -1

The indices used are 1 less than those used in negative indexing and are reversed.

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Advanced slicing

When lists are sliced the __getitem__() method of the list object is called, with a slice object. Python has a builtin
slice method to generate slice objects. We can use this to store a slice and reuse it later like so,

data = 'chandan purohit 22 2000' #assuming data fields of fixed length

name_slice = slice(0,19)
age_slice = slice(19,21)
salary_slice = slice(22,None)

#now we can have more readable slices

print(data[name_slice]) #chandan purohit
print(data[age_slice]) #'22'
print(data[salary_slice]) #'2000'

This can be of great use by providing slicing functionality to our objects by overriding __getitem__ in our class.

Section 20.3: Checking if list is empty

The emptiness of a list is associated to the boolean False, so you don't have to check len(lst) == 0, but just lst
or not lst

lst = []
if not lst:
print("list is empty")

# Output: list is empty

Section 20.4: Iterating over a list

Python supports using a for loop directly on a list:

my_list = ['foo', 'bar', 'baz']

for item in my_list:
print(item)

# Output: foo
# Output: bar
# Output: baz

You can also get the position of each item at the same time:

for (index, item) in enumerate(my_list):

print('The item in position {} is: {}'.format(index, item))

# Output: The item in position 0 is: foo

# Output: The item in position 1 is: bar
# Output: The item in position 2 is: baz

The other way of iterating a list based on the index value:

for i in range(0,len(my_list)):
print(my_list[i])
#output:
>>>
foo
bar

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baz

Note that changing items in a list while iterating on it may have unexpected results:

for item in my_list:

if item == 'foo':
del my_list[0]
print(item)

# Output: foo
# Output: baz

In this last example, we deleted the first item at the first iteration, but that caused bar to be skipped.

Section 20.5: Checking whether an item is in a list

Python makes it very simple to check whether an item is in a list. Simply use the in operator.

lst = ['test', 'twest', 'tweast', 'treast']

'test' in lst
# Out: True

'toast' in lst
# Out: False

Note: the in operator on sets is asymptotically faster than on lists. If you need to use it many times on
potentially large lists, you may want to convert your list to a set, and test the presence of elements on
the set.

slst = set(lst)
'test' in slst
# Out: True

Section 20.6: Any and All

You can use all() to determine if all the values in an iterable evaluate to True

nums = [1, 1, 0, 1]
all(nums)
# False
chars = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']
all(chars)
# True

Likewise, any() determines if one or more values in an iterable evaluate to True

nums = [1, 1, 0, 1]
any(nums)
# True
vals = [None, None, None, False]
any(vals)
# False

While this example uses a list, it is important to note these built-ins work with any iterable, including generators.

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vals = [1, 2, 3, 4]
any(val > 12 for val in vals)
# False
any((val * 2) > 6 for val in vals)
# True

Section 20.7: Reversing list elements

You can use the reversed function which returns an iterator to the reversed list:

In [3]: rev = reversed(numbers)

In [4]: rev
Out[4]: [9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1]

Note that the list "numbers" remains unchanged by this operation, and remains in the same order it was originally.

To reverse in place, you can also use the reverse method.

You can also reverse a list (actually obtaining a copy, the original list is unaffected) by using the slicing syntax,
setting the third argument (the step) as -1:

In [1]: numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

In [2]: numbers[::-1]
Out[2]: [9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1]

Section 20.8: Concatenate and Merge lists

1. The simplest way to concatenate list1 and list2:

merged = list1 + list2

2. zip returns a list of tuples, where the i-th tuple contains the i-th element from each of the argument
sequences or iterables:

alist = ['a1', 'a2', 'a3']

blist = ['b1', 'b2', 'b3']

for a, b in zip(alist, blist):

print(a, b)

# Output:
# a1 b1
# a2 b2
# a3 b3

If the lists have different lengths then the result will include only as many elements as the shortest one:

alist = ['a1', 'a2', 'a3']

blist = ['b1', 'b2', 'b3', 'b4']
for a, b in zip(alist, blist):
print(a, b)

# Output:
# a1 b1

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 # a2 b2
# a3 b3

alist = []
len(list(zip(alist, blist)))

# Output:
# 0

For padding lists of unequal length to the longest one with Nones use itertools.zip_longest
(itertools.izip_longest in Python 2)

alist = ['a1', 'a2', 'a3']

blist = ['b1']
clist = ['c1', 'c2', 'c3', 'c4']

for a,b,c in itertools.zip_longest(alist, blist, clist):

print(a, b, c)

# Output:
# a1 b1 c1
# a2 None c2
# a3 None c3
# None None c4

3. Insert to a specific index values:

alist = [123, 'xyz', 'zara', 'abc']

alist.insert(3, [2009])
print("Final List :", alist)

Output:

Final List : [123, 'xyz', 'zara', 2009, 'abc']

Section 20.9: Length of a list

Use len() to get the one-dimensional length of a list.

len(['one', 'two']) # returns 2

len(['one', [2, 3], 'four']) # returns 3, not 4

len() also works on strings, dictionaries, and other data structures similar to lists.

Note that len() is a built-in function, not a method of a list object.

Also note that the cost of len() is O(1), meaning it will take the same amount of time to get the length of a list
regardless of its length.

Section 20.10: Remove duplicate values in list

Removing duplicate values in a list can be done by converting the list to a set (that is an unordered collection of
distinct objects). If a list data structure is needed, then the set can be converted back to a list using the function
list():

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names = ["aixk", "duke", "edik", "tofp", "duke"]
list(set(names))
# Out: ['duke', 'tofp', 'aixk', 'edik']

Note that by converting a list to a set the original ordering is lost.

To preserve the order of the list one can use an OrderedDict

import collections
>>> collections.OrderedDict.fromkeys(names).keys()
# Out: ['aixk', 'duke', 'edik', 'tofp']

Section 20.11: Comparison of lists

It's possible to compare lists and other sequences lexicographically using comparison operators. Both operands
must be of the same type.

[1, 10, 100] < [2, 10, 100]

# True, because 1 < 2
[1, 10, 100] < [1, 10, 100]
# False, because the lists are equal
[1, 10, 100] <= [1, 10, 100]
# True, because the lists are equal
[1, 10, 100] < [1, 10, 101]
# True, because 100 < 101
[1, 10, 100] < [0, 10, 100]
# False, because 0 < 1

If one of the lists is contained at the start of the other, the shortest list wins.

[1, 10] < [1, 10, 100]

# True

Section 20.12: Accessing values in nested list

Starting with a three-dimensional list:

alist = [[[1,2],[3,4]], [[5,6,7],[8,9,10], [12, 13, 14]]]

Accessing items in the list:

print(alist[0][0][1])
#2
#Accesses second element in the first list in the first list

print(alist[1][1][2])
#10
#Accesses the third element in the second list in the second list

Performing support operations:

alist[0][0].append(11)
print(alist[0][0][2])
#11
#Appends 11 to the end of the first list in the first list

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Using nested for loops to print the list:

for row in alist: #One way to loop through nested lists

for col in row:
print(col)
#[1, 2, 11]
#[3, 4]
#[5, 6, 7]
#[8, 9, 10]
#[12, 13, 14]

Note that this operation can be used in a list comprehension or even as a generator to produce efficiencies, e.g.:

[col for row in alist for col in row]

#[[1, 2, 11], [3, 4], [5, 6, 7], [8, 9, 10], [12, 13, 14]]

Not all items in the outer lists have to be lists themselves:

alist[1].insert(2, 15)
#Inserts 15 into the third position in the second list

Another way to use nested for loops. The other way is better but I've needed to use this on occasion:

for row in range(len(alist)): #A less Pythonic way to loop through lists

for col in range(len(alist[row])):
print(alist[row][col])

#[1, 2, 11]
#[3, 4]
#[5, 6, 7]
#[8, 9, 10]
#15
#[12, 13, 14]

Using slices in nested list:

print(alist[1][1:])
#[[8, 9, 10], 15, [12, 13, 14]]
#Slices still work

The final list:

print(alist)
#[[[1, 2, 11], [3, 4]], [[5, 6, 7], [8, 9, 10], 15, [12, 13, 14]]]

Section 20.13: Initializing a List to a Fixed Number of Elements

For immutable elements (e.g. None, string literals etc.):

my_list = [None] * 10
my_list = ['test'] * 10

For mutable elements, the same construct will result in all elements of the list referring to the same object, for
example, for a set:

>>> my_list=[{1}] * 10

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>>> print(my_list)
[{1}, {1}, {1}, {1}, {1}, {1}, {1}, {1}, {1}, {1}]
>>> my_list[0].add(2)
>>> print(my_list)
[{1, 2}, {1, 2}, {1, 2}, {1, 2}, {1, 2}, {1, 2}, {1, 2}, {1, 2}, {1, 2}, {1, 2}]

Instead, to initialize the list with a fixed number of different mutable objects, use:

my_list=[{1} for _ in range(10)]

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Chapter 21: List comprehensions
List comprehensions in Python are concise, syntactic constructs. They can be utilized to generate lists from other
lists by applying functions to each element in the list. The following section explains and demonstrates the use of
these expressions.

Section 21.1: List Comprehensions

A list comprehension creates a new list by applying an expression to each element of an iterable. The most basic
form is:

[ <expression> for <element> in <iterable> ]

There's also an optional 'if' condition:

[ <expression> for <element> in <iterable> if <condition> ]

Each <element> in the <iterable> is plugged in to the <expression> if the (optional) <condition> evaluates to true
. All results are returned at once in the new list. Generator expressions are evaluated lazily, but list comprehensions
evaluate the entire iterator immediately - consuming memory proportional to the iterator's length.

To create a list of squared integers:

squares = [x * x for x in (1, 2, 3, 4)]

# squares: [1, 4, 9, 16]

The for expression sets x to each value in turn from (1, 2, 3, 4). The result of the expression x * x is appended
to an internal list. The internal list is assigned to the variable squares when completed.

Besides a speed increase (as explained here), a list comprehension is roughly equivalent to the following for-loop:

squares = []
for x in (1, 2, 3, 4):
squares.append(x * x)
# squares: [1, 4, 9, 16]

The expression applied to each element can be as complex as needed:

# Get a list of uppercase characters from a string

[s.upper() for s in "Hello World"]
# ['H', 'E', 'L', 'L', 'O', ' ', 'W', 'O', 'R', 'L', 'D']

# Strip off any commas from the end of strings in a list

[w.strip(',') for w in ['these,', 'words,,', 'mostly', 'have,commas,']]
# ['these', 'words', 'mostly', 'have,commas']

# Organize letters in words more reasonably - in an alphabetical order

sentence = "Beautiful is better than ugly"
["".join(sorted(word, key = lambda x: x.lower())) for word in sentence.split()]
# ['aBefiltuu', 'is', 'beertt', 'ahnt', 'gluy']

else

else can be used in List comprehension constructs, but be careful regarding the syntax. The if/else clauses should

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be used before for loop, not after:

# create a list of characters in apple, replacing non vowels with '*'

# Ex - 'apple' --> ['a', '*', '*', '*' ,'e']

[x for x in 'apple' if x in 'aeiou' else '*']

#SyntaxError: invalid syntax

# When using if/else together use them before the loop

[x if x in 'aeiou' else '*' for x in 'apple']
#['a', '*', '*', '*', 'e']

Note this uses a different language construct, a conditional expression, which itself is not part of the
comprehension syntax. Whereas the if after the for…in is a part of list comprehensions and used to filter
elements from the source iterable.

Double Iteration

Order of double iteration [... for x in ... for y in ...] is either natural or counter-intuitive. The rule of
thumb is to follow an equivalent for loop:

def foo(i):
return i, i + 0.5

for i in range(3):
for x in foo(i):
yield str(x)

This becomes:

[str(x)
for i in range(3)
for x in foo(i)
]

This can be compressed into one line as [str(x) for i in range(3) for x in foo(i)]

In-place Mutation and Other Side Effects

Before using list comprehension, understand the difference between functions called for their side effects
(mutating, or in-place functions) which usually return None, and functions that return an interesting value.

Many functions (especially pure functions) simply take an object and return some object. An in-place function
modifies the existing object, which is called a side effect. Other examples include input and output operations such
as printing.

list.sort() sorts a list in-place (meaning that it modifies the original list) and returns the value None. Therefore, it
won't work as expected in a list comprehension:

[x.sort() for x in [[2, 1], [4, 3], [0, 1]]]

# [None, None, None]

Instead, sorted() returns a sorted list rather than sorting in-place:

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[sorted(x) for x in [[2, 1], [4, 3], [0, 1]]]
# [[1, 2], [3, 4], [0, 1]]

Using comprehensions for side-effects is possible, such as I/O or in-place functions. Yet a for loop is usually more
readable. While this works in Python 3:

[print(x) for x in (1, 2, 3)]

Instead use:

for x in (1, 2, 3):

print(x)

In some situations, side effect functions are suitable for list comprehension. random.randrange() has the side
effect of changing the state of the random number generator, but it also returns an interesting value. Additionally,
next() can be called on an iterator.

The following random value generator is not pure, yet makes sense as the random generator is reset every time the
expression is evaluated:

from random import randrange

[randrange(1, 7) for _ in range(10)]
# [2, 3, 2, 1, 1, 5, 2, 4, 3, 5]

Whitespace in list comprehensions

More complicated list comprehensions can reach an undesired length, or become less readable. Although less
common in examples, it is possible to break a list comprehension into multiple lines like so:

[
x for x
in 'foo'
if x not in 'bar'
]

Section 21.2: Conditional List Comprehensions

Given a list comprehension you can append one or more if conditions to filter values.

[<expression> for <element> in <iterable> if <condition>]

For each <element> in <iterable>; if <condition> evaluates to True, add <expression> (usually a function of
<element>) to the returned list.

For example, this can be used to extract only even numbers from a sequence of integers:

[x for x in range(10) if x % 2 == 0]
# Out: [0, 2, 4, 6, 8]

Live demo

The above code is equivalent to:

even_numbers = []

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for x in range(10):
if x % 2 == 0:
even_numbers.append(x)

print(even_numbers)
# Out: [0, 2, 4, 6, 8]

Also, a conditional list comprehension of the form [e for x in y if c] (where e and c are expressions in terms of
x) is equivalent to list(filter(lambda x: c, map(lambda x: e, y))).

Despite providing the same result, pay attention to the fact that the former example is almost 2x faster than the
latter one. For those who are curious, this is a nice explanation of the reason why.

Note that this is quite different from the ... if ... else ... conditional expression (sometimes known as a
ternary expression) that you can use for the <expression> part of the list comprehension. Consider the following
example:

[x if x % 2 == 0 else None for x in range(10)]

# Out: [0, None, 2, None, 4, None, 6, None, 8, None]

Live demo

Here the conditional expression isn't a filter, but rather an operator determining the value to be used for the list
items:

<value-if-condition-is-true> if <condition> else <value-if-condition-is-false>

This becomes more obvious if you combine it with other operators:

[2 * (x if x % 2 == 0 else -1) + 1 for x in range(10)]

# Out: [1, -1, 5, -1, 9, -1, 13, -1, 17, -1]

Live demo

If you are using Python 2.7, xrange may be better than range for several reasons as described in the xrange
documentation.

[2 * (x if x % 2 == 0 else -1) + 1 for x in xrange(10)]

# Out: [1, -1, 5, -1, 9, -1, 13, -1, 17, -1]

The above code is equivalent to:

numbers = []
for x in range(10):
if x % 2 == 0:
temp = x
else:
temp = -1
numbers.append(2 * temp + 1)
print(numbers)
# Out: [1, -1, 5, -1, 9, -1, 13, -1, 17, -1]

One can combine ternary expressions and if conditions. The ternary operator works on the filtered result:

[x if x > 2 else '*' for x in range(10) if x % 2 == 0]

# Out: ['*', '*', 4, 6, 8]

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The same couldn't have been achieved just by ternary operator only:

[x if (x > 2 and x % 2 == 0) else '*' for x in range(10)]

# Out:['*', '*', '*', '*', 4, '*', 6, '*', 8, '*']

See also: Filters, which often provide a sufficient alternative to conditional list comprehensions.

Section 21.3: Avoid repetitive and expensive operations using

conditional clause
Consider the below list comprehension:

>>> def f(x):

... import time
... time.sleep(.1) # Simulate expensive function
... return x**2

>>> [f(x) for x in range(1000) if f(x) > 10]

[16, 25, 36, ...]

This results in two calls to f(x) for 1,000 values of x: one call for generating the value and the other for checking the
if condition. If f(x) is a particularly expensive operation, this can have significant performance implications.
Worse, if calling f() has side effects, it can have surprising results.

Instead, you should evaluate the expensive operation only once for each value of x by generating an intermediate
iterable (generator expression) as follows:

>>> [v for v in (f(x) for x in range(1000)) if v > 10]

[16, 25, 36, ...]

Or, using the builtin map equivalent:

>>> [v for v in map(f, range(1000)) if v > 10]

[16, 25, 36, ...]

Another way that could result in a more readable code is to put the partial result (v in the previous example) in an
iterable (such as a list or a tuple) and then iterate over it. Since v will be the only element in the iterable, the result is
that we now have a reference to the output of our slow function computed only once:

>>> [v for x in range(1000) for v in [f(x)] if v > 10]

[16, 25, 36, ...]

However, in practice, the logic of code can be more complicated and it's important to keep it readable. In general, a
separate generator function is recommended over a complex one-liner:

>>> def process_prime_numbers(iterable):

... for x in iterable:
... if is_prime(x):
... yield f(x)
...
>>> [x for x in process_prime_numbers(range(1000)) if x > 10]
[11, 13, 17, 19, ...]

Another way to prevent computing f(x) multiple times is to use the @functools.lru_cache()(Python 3.2+)
decorator on f(x). This way since the output of f for the input x has already been computed once, the second

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function invocation of the original list comprehension will be as fast as a dictionary lookup. This approach uses
memoization to improve efficiency, which is comparable to using generator expressions.

Say you have to flatten a list

l = [[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6], [7], [8, 9]]

Some of the methods could be:

reduce(lambda x, y: x+y, l)

sum(l, [])

list(itertools.chain(*l))

However list comprehension would provide the best time complexity.

[item for sublist in l for item in sublist]

The shortcuts based on + (including the implied use in sum) are, of necessity, O(L^2) when there are L sublists -- as
the intermediate result list keeps getting longer, at each step a new intermediate result list object gets allocated,
and all the items in the previous intermediate result must be copied over (as well as a few new ones added at the
end). So (for simplicity and without actual loss of generality) say you have L sublists of I items each: the first I items
are copied back and forth L-1 times, the second I items L-2 times, and so on; total number of copies is I times the
sum of x for x from 1 to L excluded, i.e., I * (L**2)/2.

The list comprehension just generates one list, once, and copies each item over (from its original place of residence
to the result list) also exactly once.

Section 21.4: Dictionary Comprehensions

A dictionary comprehension is similar to a list comprehension except that it produces a dictionary object instead of
a list.

A basic example:

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.7

{x: x * x for x in (1, 2, 3, 4)}

# Out: {1: 1, 2: 4, 3: 9, 4: 16}

which is just another way of writing:

dict((x, x * x) for x in (1, 2, 3, 4))

# Out: {1: 1, 2: 4, 3: 9, 4: 16}

As with a list comprehension, we can use a conditional statement inside the dict comprehension to produce only
the dict elements meeting some criterion.

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.7

{name: len(name) for name in ('Stack', 'Overflow', 'Exchange') if len(name) > 6}

# Out: {'Exchange': 8, 'Overflow': 8}

Or, rewritten using a generator expression.

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dict((name, len(name)) for name in ('Stack', 'Overflow', 'Exchange') if len(name) > 6)
# Out: {'Exchange': 8, 'Overflow': 8}

Starting with a dictionary and using dictionary comprehension as a key-value pair filter

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.7

initial_dict = {'x': 1, 'y': 2}

{key: value for key, value in initial_dict.items() if key == 'x'}
# Out: {'x': 1}

Switching key and value of dictionary (invert dictionary)

If you have a dict containing simple hashable values (duplicate values may have unexpected results):

my_dict = {1: 'a', 2: 'b', 3: 'c'}

and you wanted to swap the keys and values you can take several approaches depending on your coding style:

swapped = {v: k for k, v in my_dict.items()}

swapped = dict((v, k) for k, v in my_dict.iteritems())
swapped = dict(zip(my_dict.values(), my_dict))
swapped = dict(zip(my_dict.values(), my_dict.keys()))
swapped = dict(map(reversed, my_dict.items()))

print(swapped)
# Out: {a: 1, b: 2, c: 3}

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.3

If your dictionary is large, consider importing itertools and utilize izip or imap.

Merging Dictionaries

Combine dictionaries and optionally override old values with a nested dictionary comprehension.

dict1 = {'w': 1, 'x': 1}

dict2 = {'x': 2, 'y': 2, 'z': 2}

{k: v for d in [dict1, dict2] for k, v in d.items()}

# Out: {'w': 1, 'x': 2, 'y': 2, 'z': 2}

However, dictionary unpacking (PEP 448) may be a preferred.

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.5

{**dict1, **dict2}
# Out: {'w': 1, 'x': 2, 'y': 2, 'z': 2}

Note: dictionary comprehensions were added in Python 3.0 and backported to 2.7+, unlike list comprehensions,
which were added in 2.0. Versions < 2.7 can use generator expressions and the dict() builtin to simulate the
behavior of dictionary comprehensions.

Section 21.5: List Comprehensions with Nested Loops

List Comprehensions can use nested for loops. You can code any number of nested for loops within a list
comprehension, and each for loop may have an optional associated if test. When doing so, the order of the for

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constructs is the same order as when writing a series of nested for statements. The general structure of list
comprehensions looks like this:

[ expression for target1 in iterable1 [if condition1]

for target2 in iterable2 [if condition2]...
for targetN in iterableN [if conditionN] ]

For example, the following code flattening a list of lists using multiple for statements:

data = [[1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6]]

output = []
for each_list in data:
for element in each_list:
output.append(element)
print(output)
# Out: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

can be equivalently written as a list comprehension with multiple for constructs:

data = [[1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6]]

output = [element for each_list in data for element in each_list]
print(output)
# Out: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Live Demo

In both the expanded form and the list comprehension, the outer loop (first for statement) comes first.

In addition to being more compact, the nested comprehension is also significantly faster.

In [1]: data = [[1,2],[3,4],[5,6]]

In [2]: def f():
...: output=[]
...: for each_list in data:
...: for element in each_list:
...: output.append(element)
...: return output
In [3]: timeit f()
1000000 loops, best of 3: 1.37 µs per loop
In [4]: timeit [inner for outer in data for inner in outer]
1000000 loops, best of 3: 632 ns per loop

The overhead for the function call above is about 140ns.

Inline ifs are nested similarly, and may occur in any position after the first for:

data = [[1], [2, 3], [4, 5]]

output = [element for each_list in data
if len(each_list) == 2
for element in each_list
if element != 5]
print(output)
# Out: [2, 3, 4]

Live Demo

For the sake of readability, however, you should consider using traditional for-loops. This is especially true when
nesting is more than 2 levels deep, and/or the logic of the comprehension is too complex. multiple nested loop list

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comprehension could be error prone or it gives unexpected result.

Section 21.6: Generator Expressions

Generator expressions are very similar to list comprehensions. The main difference is that it does not create a full
set of results at once; it creates a generator object which can then be iterated over.

For instance, see the difference in the following code:

# list comprehension
[x**2 for x in range(10)]
# Output: [0, 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81]

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.4

# generator comprehension
(x**2 for x in xrange(10))
# Output: <generator object <genexpr> at 0x11b4b7c80>

These are two very different objects:

the list comprehension returns a list object whereas the generator comprehension returns a generator.

generator objects cannot be indexed and makes use of the next function to get items in order.

Note: We use xrange since it too creates a generator object. If we would use range, a list would be created. Also,
xrange exists only in later version of python 2. In python 3, range just returns a generator. For more information,
see the Differences between range and xrange functions example.

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.4

g = (x**2 for x in xrange(10))

print(g[0])

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: 'generator' object has no attribute '__getitem__'

g.next() # 0
g.next() # 1
g.next() # 4
...
g.next() # 81

g.next() # Throws StopIteration Exception

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
StopIteration

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.0

NOTE: The function g.next() should be substituted by next(g) and xrange with range since
Iterator.next() and xrange() do not exist in Python 3.

Although both of these can be iterated in a similar way:

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for i in [x**2 for x in range(10)]:
print(i)

"""
Out:
0
1
4
...
81
"""

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.4

for i in (x**2 for x in xrange(10)):

print(i)

"""
Out:
0
1
4
.
.
.
81
"""

Use cases

Generator expressions are lazily evaluated, which means that they generate and return each value only when the
generator is iterated. This is often useful when iterating through large datasets, avoiding the need to create a
duplicate of the dataset in memory:

for square in (x**2 for x in range(1000000)):

#do something

Another common use case is to avoid iterating over an entire iterable if doing so is not necessary. In this example,
an item is retrieved from a remote API with each iteration of get_objects(). Thousands of objects may exist, must
be retrieved one-by-one, and we only need to know if an object matching a pattern exists. By using a generator
expression, when we encounter an object matching the pattern.

def get_objects():
"""Gets objects from an API one by one"""
while True:
yield get_next_item()

def object_matches_pattern(obj):
# perform potentially complex calculation
return matches_pattern

def right_item_exists():
items = (object_matched_pattern(each) for each in get_objects())
for item in items:
if item.is_the_right_one:

return True
return False

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Section 21.7: Set Comprehensions
Set comprehension is similar to list and dictionary comprehension, but it produces a set, which is an unordered
collection of unique elements.

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.7

# A set containing every value in range(5):

{x for x in range(5)}
# Out: {0, 1, 2, 3, 4}

# A set of even numbers between 1 and 10:

{x for x in range(1, 11) if x % 2 == 0}
# Out: {2, 4, 6, 8, 10}

# Unique alphabetic characters in a string of text:

text = "When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people..."
{ch.lower() for ch in text if ch.isalpha()}
# Out: set(['a', 'c', 'b', 'e', 'f', 'i', 'h', 'm', 'l', 'o',
# 'n', 'p', 's', 'r', 'u', 't', 'w', 'v', 'y'])

Live Demo

Keep in mind that sets are unordered. This means that the order of the results in the set may differ from the one
presented in the above examples.

Note: Set comprehension is available since python 2.7+, unlike list comprehensions, which were added in 2.0. In
Python 2.2 to Python 2.6, the set() function can be used with a generator expression to produce the same result:

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.2

set(x for x in range(5))

# Out: {0, 1, 2, 3, 4}

Section 21.8: Refactoring filter and map to list

comprehensions
The filter or map functions should often be replaced by list comprehensions. Guido Van Rossum describes this
well in an open letter in 2005:

filter(P, S) is almost always written clearer as [x for x in S if P(x)], and this has the huge
advantage that the most common usages involve predicates that are comparisons, e.g. x==42, and
defining a lambda for that just requires much more effort for the reader (plus the lambda is slower than
the list comprehension). Even more so for map(F, S) which becomes [F(x) for x in S]. Of course, in
many cases you'd be able to use generator expressions instead.

The following lines of code are considered "not pythonic" and will raise errors in many python linters.

filter(lambda x: x % 2 == 0, range(10)) # even numbers < 10

map(lambda x: 2*x, range(10)) # multiply each number by two
reduce(lambda x,y: x+y, range(10)) # sum of all elements in list

Taking what we have learned from the previous quote, we can break down these filter and map expressions into
their equivalent list comprehensions; also removing the lambda functions from each - making the code more
readable in the process.

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# Filter:
# P(x) = x % 2 == 0
# S = range(10)
[x for x in range(10) if x % 2 == 0]

# Map
# F(x) = 2*x
# S = range(10)
[2*x for x in range(10)]

Readability becomes even more apparent when dealing with chaining functions. Where due to readability, the
results of one map or filter function should be passed as a result to the next; with simple cases, these can be
replaced with a single list comprehension. Further, we can easily tell from the list comprehension what the outcome
of our process is, where there is more cognitive load when reasoning about the chained Map & Filter process.

# Map & Filter

filtered = filter(lambda x: x % 2 == 0, range(10))
results = map(lambda x: 2*x, filtered)

# List comprehension
results = [2*x for x in range(10) if x % 2 == 0]

Refactoring - Quick Reference

Map

map(F, S) == [F(x) for x in S]

Filter

filter(P, S) == [x for x in S if P(x)]

where F and P are functions which respectively transform input values and return a bool

Section 21.9: Comprehensions involving tuples

The for clause of a list comprehension can specify more than one variable:

[x + y for x, y in [(1, 2), (3, 4), (5, 6)]]

# Out: [3, 7, 11]

[x + y for x, y in zip([1, 3, 5], [2, 4, 6])]

# Out: [3, 7, 11]

This is just like regular for loops:

for x, y in [(1,2), (3,4), (5,6)]:

print(x+y)
# 3
# 7
# 11

Note however, if the expression that begins the comprehension is a tuple then it must be parenthesized:

[x, y for x, y in [(1, 2), (3, 4), (5, 6)]]

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# SyntaxError: invalid syntax

[(x, y) for x, y in [(1, 2), (3, 4), (5, 6)]]

# Out: [(1, 2), (3, 4), (5, 6)]

Section 21.10: Counting Occurrences Using Comprehension

When we want to count the number of items in an iterable, that meet some condition, we can use comprehension
to produce an idiomatic syntax:

# Count the numbers in `range(1000)` that are even and contain the digit `9`:
print (sum(
1 for x in range(1000)
if x % 2 == 0 and
'9' in str(x)
))
# Out: 95

The basic concept can be summarized as:

1. Iterate over the elements in range(1000).

2. Concatenate all the needed if conditions.
3. Use 1 as expression to return a 1 for each item that meets the conditions.
4. Sum up all the 1s to determine number of items that meet the conditions.

Note: Here we are not collecting the 1s in a list (note the absence of square brackets), but we are passing the ones
directly to the sum function that is summing them up. This is called a generator expression, which is similar to a
Comprehension.

Section 21.11: Changing Types in a List

Quantitative data is often read in as strings that must be converted to numeric types before processing. The types
of all list items can be converted with either a List Comprehension or the map() function.

# Convert a list of strings to integers.

items = ["1","2","3","4"]
[int(item) for item in items]
# Out: [1, 2, 3, 4]

# Convert a list of strings to float.

items = ["1","2","3","4"]
map(float, items)
# Out:[1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0]

Section 21.12: Nested List Comprehensions

Nested list comprehensions, unlike list comprehensions with nested loops, are List comprehensions within a list
comprehension. The initial expression can be any arbitrary expression, including another list comprehension.

#List Comprehension with nested loop

[x + y for x in [1, 2, 3] for y in [3, 4, 5]]
#Out: [4, 5, 6, 5, 6, 7, 6, 7, 8]

#Nested List Comprehension

[[x + y for x in [1, 2, 3]] for y in [3, 4, 5]]
#Out: [[4, 5, 6], [5, 6, 7], [6, 7, 8]]

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The Nested example is equivalent to

l = []
for y in [3, 4, 5]:
temp = []
for x in [1, 2, 3]:
temp.append(x + y)
l.append(temp)

One example where a nested comprehension can be used it to transpose a matrix.

matrix = [[1,2,3],
[4,5,6],
[7,8,9]]

[[row[i] for row in matrix] for i in range(len(matrix))]

# [[1, 4, 7], [2, 5, 8], [3, 6, 9]]

Like nested for loops, there is no limit to how deep comprehensions can be nested.

[[[i + j + k for k in 'cd'] for j in 'ab'] for i in '12']

# Out: [[['1ac', '1ad'], ['1bc', '1bd']], [['2ac', '2ad'], ['2bc', '2bd']]]

Section 21.13: Iterate two or more list simultaneously within

list comprehension
For iterating more than two lists simultaneously within list comprehension, one may use zip() as:

>>> list_1 = [1, 2, 3 , 4]

>>> list_2 = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']
>>> list_3 = ['6', '7', '8', '9']

# Two lists
>>> [(i, j) for i, j in zip(list_1, list_2)]
[(1, 'a'), (2, 'b'), (3, 'c'), (4, 'd')]

# Three lists
>>> [(i, j, k) for i, j, k in zip(list_1, list_2, list_3)]
[(1, 'a', '6'), (2, 'b', '7'), (3, 'c', '8'), (4, 'd', '9')]

# so on ...

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Chapter 22: List slicing (selecting parts of
lists)
Section 22.1: Using the third "step" argument
lst = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h']

lst[::2]
# Output: ['a', 'c', 'e', 'g']

lst[::3]
# Output: ['a', 'd', 'g']

Section 22.2: Selecting a sublist from a list

lst = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e']

lst[2:4]
# Output: ['c', 'd']

lst[2:]
# Output: ['c', 'd', 'e']

lst[:4]
# Output: ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']

Section 22.3: Reversing a list with slicing

a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

# steps through the list backwards (step=-1)

b = a[::-1]

# built-in list method to reverse 'a'

a.reverse()

if a = b:
print(True)

print(b)

# Output:
# True
# [5, 4, 3, 2, 1]

Section 22.4: Shifting a list using slicing

def shift_list(array, s):
"""Shifts the elements of a list to the left or right.

Args:
array - the list to shift
s - the amount to shift the list ('+': right-shift, '-': left-shift)

Returns:
shifted_array - the shifted list

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 """
# calculate actual shift amount (e.g., 11 --> 1 if length of the array is 5)
s %= len(array)

# reverse the shift direction to be more intuitive

s *= -1

# shift array with list slicing

shifted_array = array[s:] + array[:s]

return shifted_array

my_array = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

# negative numbers
shift_list(my_array, -7)
>>> [3, 4, 5, 1, 2]

# no shift on numbers equal to the size of the array

shift_list(my_array, 5)
>>> [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

# works on positive numbers

shift_list(my_array, 3)
>>> [3, 4, 5, 1, 2]

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Chapter 23: groupby()
Parameter Details
iterable Any python iterable
key Function(criteria) on which to group the iterable

In Python, the itertools.groupby() method allows developers to group values of an iterable class based on a
specified property into another iterable set of values.

Section 23.1: Example 4

In this example we see what happens when we use different types of iterable.

things = [("animal", "bear"), ("animal", "duck"), ("plant", "cactus"), ("vehicle", "harley"), \

("vehicle", "speed boat"), ("vehicle", "school bus")]
dic = {}
f = lambda x: x[0]
for key, group in groupby(sorted(things, key=f), f):
dic[key] = list(group)
dic

Results in

{'animal': [('animal', 'bear'), ('animal', 'duck')],

'plant': [('plant', 'cactus')],
'vehicle': [('vehicle', 'harley'),
('vehicle', 'speed boat'),
('vehicle', 'school bus')]}

This example below is essentially the same as the one above it. The only difference is that I have changed all the
tuples to lists.

things = [["animal", "bear"], ["animal", "duck"], ["vehicle", "harley"], ["plant", "cactus"], \

["vehicle", "speed boat"], ["vehicle", "school bus"]]
dic = {}
f = lambda x: x[0]
for key, group in groupby(sorted(things, key=f), f):
dic[key] = list(group)
dic

Results

{'animal': [['animal', 'bear'], ['animal', 'duck']],

'plant': [['plant', 'cactus']],
'vehicle': [['vehicle', 'harley'],
['vehicle', 'speed boat'],
['vehicle', 'school bus']]}

Section 23.2: Example 2

This example illustrates how the default key is chosen if we do not specify any

c = groupby(['goat', 'dog', 'cow', 1, 1, 2, 3, 11, 10, ('persons', 'man', 'woman')])

dic = {}
for k, v in c:

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 dic[k] = list(v)
dic

Results in

{1: [1, 1],

2: [2],
3: [3],
('persons', 'man', 'woman'): [('persons', 'man', 'woman')],
'cow': ['cow'],
'dog': ['dog'],
10: [10],
11: [11],
'goat': ['goat']}

Notice here that the tuple as a whole counts as one key in this list

Section 23.3: Example 3

Notice in this example that mulato and camel don't show up in our result. Only the last element with the specified
key shows up. The last result for c actually wipes out two previous results. But watch the new version where I have
the data sorted first on same key.

list_things = ['goat', 'dog', 'donkey', 'mulato', 'cow', 'cat', ('persons', 'man', 'woman'), \
'wombat', 'mongoose', 'malloo', 'camel']
c = groupby(list_things, key=lambda x: x[0])
dic = {}
for k, v in c:
dic[k] = list(v)
dic

Results in

{'c': ['camel'],
'd': ['dog', 'donkey'],
'g': ['goat'],
'm': ['mongoose', 'malloo'],
'persons': [('persons', 'man', 'woman')],
'w': ['wombat']}

Sorted Version

list_things = ['goat', 'dog', 'donkey', 'mulato', 'cow', 'cat', ('persons', 'man', 'woman'), \
'wombat', 'mongoose', 'malloo', 'camel']
sorted_list = sorted(list_things, key = lambda x: x[0])
print(sorted_list)
print()
c = groupby(sorted_list, key=lambda x: x[0])
dic = {}
for k, v in c:
dic[k] = list(v)
dic

Results in

['cow', 'cat', 'camel', 'dog', 'donkey', 'goat', 'mulato', 'mongoose', 'malloo', ('persons', 'man',
'woman'), 'wombat']

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{'c': ['cow', 'cat', 'camel'],
'd': ['dog', 'donkey'],
'g': ['goat'],
'm': ['mulato', 'mongoose', 'malloo'],
'persons': [('persons', 'man', 'woman')],
'w': ['wombat']}

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Chapter 24: Linked lists
A linked list is a collection of nodes, each made up of a reference and a value. Nodes are strung together into a
sequence using their references. Linked lists can be used to implement more complex data structures like lists,
stacks, queues, and associative arrays.

Section 24.1: Single linked list example

This example implements a linked list with many of the same methods as that of the built-in list object.

class Node:
def __init__(self, val):
self.data = val
self.next = None

def getData(self):
return self.data

def getNext(self):
return self.next

def setData(self, val):

self.data = val

def setNext(self, val):

self.next = val

class LinkedList:
def __init__(self):
self.head = None

def isEmpty(self):
"""Check if the list is empty"""
return self.head is None

def add(self, item):

"""Add the item to the list"""
new_node = Node(item)
new_node.setNext(self.head)
self.head = new_node

def size(self):
"""Return the length/size of the list"""
count = 0
current = self.head
while current is not None:
count += 1
current = current.getNext()
return count

def search(self, item):

"""Search for item in list. If found, return True. If not found, return False"""
current = self.head
found = False
while current is not None and not found:
if current.getData() is item:
found = True
else:
current = current.getNext()

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 return found

def remove(self, item):

"""Remove item from list. If item is not found in list, raise ValueError"""
current = self.head
previous = None
found = False
while current is not None and not found:
if current.getData() is item:
found = True
else:
previous = current
current = current.getNext()
if found:
if previous is None:
self.head = current.getNext()
else:
previous.setNext(current.getNext())
else:
raise ValueError
print 'Value not found.'

def insert(self, position, item):

"""
Insert item at position specified. If position specified is
out of bounds, raise IndexError
"""
if position > self.size() - 1:
raise IndexError
print "Index out of bounds."
current = self.head
previous = None
pos = 0
if position is 0:
self.add(item)
else:
new_node = Node(item)
while pos < position:
pos += 1
previous = current
current = current.getNext()
previous.setNext(new_node)
new_node.setNext(current)

def index(self, item):

"""
Return the index where item is found.
If item is not found, return None.
"""
current = self.head
pos = 0
found = False
while current is not None and not found:
if current.getData() is item:
found = True
else:
current = current.getNext()
pos += 1
if found:
pass
else:
pos = None

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 return pos

def pop(self, position = None):

"""
If no argument is provided, return and remove the item at the head.
If position is provided, return and remove the item at that position.
If index is out of bounds, raise IndexError
"""
if position > self.size():
print 'Index out of bounds'
raise IndexError

current = self.head
if position is None:
ret = current.getData()
self.head = current.getNext()
else:
pos = 0
previous = None
while pos < position:
previous = current
current = current.getNext()
pos += 1
ret = current.getData()
previous.setNext(current.getNext())
print ret
return ret

def append(self, item):

"""Append item to the end of the list"""
current = self.head
previous = None
pos = 0
length = self.size()
while pos < length:
previous = current
current = current.getNext()
pos += 1
new_node = Node(item)
if previous is None:
new_node.setNext(current)
self.head = new_node
else:
previous.setNext(new_node)

def printList(self):
"""Print the list"""
current = self.head
while current is not None:
print current.getData()
current = current.getNext()

Usage functions much like that of the built-in list.

ll = LinkedList()
ll.add('l')
ll.add('H')
ll.insert(1,'e')
ll.append('l')
ll.append('o')
ll.printList()

GoalKicker.com – Python® Notes for Professionals 151

H
e
l
l
o

GoalKicker.com – Python® Notes for Professionals 152

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Chapter 25: Linked List Node
Section 25.1: Write a simple Linked List Node in python
A linked list is either:

the empty list, represented by None, or

a node that contains a cargo object and a reference to a linked list.

#! /usr/bin/env python

class Node:
def __init__(self, cargo=None, next=None):
self.car = cargo
self.cdr = next
def __str__(self):
return str(self.car)

def display(lst):
if lst:
w("%s " % lst)
display(lst.cdr)
else:
w("nil\n")

GoalKicker.com – Python® Notes for Professionals 154

Chapter 26: Filter
Parameter Details
callable that determines the condition or None then use the identity function for filtering (positional-
function
only)
iterable iterable that will be filtered (positional-only)

Section 26.1: Basic use of filter

To filter discards elements of a sequence based on some criteria:

names = ['Fred', 'Wilma', 'Barney']

def long_name(name):
return len(name) > 5

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.0

filter(long_name, names)
# Out: ['Barney']

[name for name in names if len(name) > 5] # equivalent list comprehension

# Out: ['Barney']

from itertools import ifilter

ifilter(long_name, names) # as generator (similar to python 3.x filter builtin)
# Out: <itertools.ifilter at 0x4197e10>
list(ifilter(long_name, names)) # equivalent to filter with lists
# Out: ['Barney']

(name for name in names if len(name) > 5) # equivalent generator expression

# Out: <generator object <genexpr> at 0x0000000003FD5D38>

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.6

# Besides the options for older python 2.x versions there is a future_builtin function:
from future_builtins import filter
filter(long_name, names) # identical to itertools.ifilter
# Out: <itertools.ifilter at 0x3eb0ba8>

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.0

filter(long_name, names) # returns a generator

# Out: <filter at 0x1fc6e443470>
list(filter(long_name, names)) # cast to list
# Out: ['Barney']

(name for name in names if len(name) > 5) # equivalent generator expression

# Out: <generator object <genexpr> at 0x000001C6F49BF4C0>

Section 26.2: Filter without function

If the function parameter is None, then the identity function will be used:

list(filter(None, [1, 0, 2, [], '', 'a'])) # discards 0, [] and ''

# Out: [1, 2, 'a']

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.0.1

[i for i in [1, 0, 2, [], '', 'a'] if i] # equivalent list comprehension

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.0.0

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(i for i in [1, 0, 2, [], '', 'a'] if i) # equivalent generator expression

Section 26.3: Filter as short-circuit check

filter (python 3.x) and ifilter (python 2.x) return a generator so they can be very handy when creating a short-
circuit test like or or and:

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.0.1

# not recommended in real use but keeps the example short:

from itertools import ifilter as filter

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.6.1

from future_builtins import filter

To find the first element that is smaller than 100:

car_shop = [('Toyota', 1000), ('rectangular tire', 80), ('Porsche', 5000)]

def find_something_smaller_than(name_value_tuple):
print('Check {0}, {1}$'.format(*name_value_tuple)
return name_value_tuple[1] < 100
next(filter(find_something_smaller_than, car_shop))
# Print: Check Toyota, 1000$
# Check rectangular tire, 80$
# Out: ('rectangular tire', 80)

The next-function gives the next (in this case first) element of and is therefore the reason why it's short-circuit.

Section 26.4: Complementary function: filterfalse, ifilterfalse

There is a complementary function for filter in the itertools-module:

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.0.1

# not recommended in real use but keeps the example valid for python 2.x and python 3.x
from itertools import ifilterfalse as filterfalse

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.0.0

from itertools import filterfalse

which works exactly like the generator filter but keeps only the elements that are False:

# Usage without function (None):

list(filterfalse(None, [1, 0, 2, [], '', 'a'])) # discards 1, 2, 'a'
# Out: [0, [], '']

# Usage with function

names = ['Fred', 'Wilma', 'Barney']

def long_name(name):
return len(name) > 5

list(filterfalse(long_name, names))
# Out: ['Fred', 'Wilma']

# Short-circuit usage with next:

car_shop = [('Toyota', 1000), ('rectangular tire', 80), ('Porsche', 5000)]
def find_something_smaller_than(name_value_tuple):

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 print('Check {0}, {1}$'.format(*name_value_tuple)
return name_value_tuple[1] < 100
next(filterfalse(find_something_smaller_than, car_shop))
# Print: Check Toyota, 1000$
# Out: ('Toyota', 1000)

# Using an equivalent generator:

car_shop = [('Toyota', 1000), ('rectangular tire', 80), ('Porsche', 5000)]
generator = (car for car in car_shop if not car[1] < 100)
next(generator)

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Chapter 27: Heapq
Section 27.1: Largest and smallest items in a collection
To find the largest items in a collection, heapq module has a function called nlargest, we pass it two arguments, the
first one is the number of items that we want to retrieve, the second one is the collection name:

import heapq

numbers = [1, 4, 2, 100, 20, 50, 32, 200, 150, 8]

print(heapq.nlargest(4, numbers)) # [200, 150, 100, 50]

Similarly, to find the smallest items in a collection, we use nsmallest function:

print(heapq.nsmallest(4, numbers)) # [1, 2, 4, 8]

Both nlargest and nsmallest functions take an optional argument (key parameter) for complicated data
structures. The following example shows the use of age property to retrieve the oldest and the youngest people
from people dictionary:

people = [
{'firstname': 'John', 'lastname': 'Doe', 'age': 30},
{'firstname': 'Jane', 'lastname': 'Doe', 'age': 25},
{'firstname': 'Janie', 'lastname': 'Doe', 'age': 10},
{'firstname': 'Jane', 'lastname': 'Roe', 'age': 22},
{'firstname': 'Johnny', 'lastname': 'Doe', 'age': 12},
{'firstname': 'John', 'lastname': 'Roe', 'age': 45}
]

oldest = heapq.nlargest(2, people, key=lambda s: s['age'])

print(oldest)
# Output: [{'firstname': 'John', 'age': 45, 'lastname': 'Roe'}, {'firstname': 'John', 'age': 30,
'lastname': 'Doe'}]

youngest = heapq.nsmallest(2, people, key=lambda s: s['age'])

print(youngest)
# Output: [{'firstname': 'Janie', 'age': 10, 'lastname': 'Doe'}, {'firstname': 'Johnny', 'age': 12,
'lastname': 'Doe'}]

Section 27.2: Smallest item in a collection

The most interesting property of a heap is that its smallest element is always the first element: heap[0]

import heapq

numbers = [10, 4, 2, 100, 20, 50, 32, 200, 150, 8]

heapq.heapify(numbers)
print(numbers)
# Output: [2, 4, 10, 100, 8, 50, 32, 200, 150, 20]

heapq.heappop(numbers) # 2
print(numbers)
# Output: [4, 8, 10, 100, 20, 50, 32, 200, 150]

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heapq.heappop(numbers) # 4
print(numbers)
# Output: [8, 20, 10, 100, 150, 50, 32, 200]

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Chapter 28: Tuple
A tuple is an immutable list of values. Tuples are one of Python's simplest and most common collection types, and
can be created with the comma operator (value = 1, 2, 3).

Section 28.1: Tuple

Syntactically, a tuple is a comma-separated list of values:

t = 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e'

Although not necessary, it is common to enclose tuples in parentheses:

t = ('a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e')

Create an empty tuple with parentheses:

t0 = ()
type(t0) # <type 'tuple'>

To create a tuple with a single element, you have to include a final comma:

t1 = 'a',
type(t1) # <type 'tuple'>

Note that a single value in parentheses is not a tuple:

t2 = ('a')
type(t2) # <type 'str'>

To create a singleton tuple it is necessary to have a trailing comma.

t2 = ('a',)
type(t2) # <type 'tuple'>

Note that for singleton tuples it's recommended (see PEP8 on trailing commas) to use parentheses. Also, no white
space after the trailing comma (see PEP8 on whitespaces)

t2 = ('a',) # PEP8-compliant
t2 = 'a', # this notation is not recommended by PEP8
t2 = ('a', ) # this notation is not recommended by PEP8

Another way to create a tuple is the built-in function tuple.

t = tuple('lupins')
print(t) # ('l', 'u', 'p', 'i', 'n', 's')
t = tuple(range(3))
print(t) # (0, 1, 2)

These examples are based on material from the book Think Python by Allen B. Downey.

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Section 28.2: Tuples are immutable
One of the main differences between lists and tuples in Python is that tuples are immutable, that is, one cannot
add or modify items once the tuple is initialized. For example:

>>> t = (1, 4, 9)
>>> t[0] = 2
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: 'tuple' object does not support item assignment

Similarly, tuples don't have .append and .extend methods as list does. Using += is possible, but it changes the
binding of the variable, and not the tuple itself:

>>> t = (1, 2)
>>> q = t
>>> t += (3, 4)
>>> t
(1, 2, 3, 4)
>>> q
(1, 2)

Be careful when placing mutable objects, such as lists, inside tuples. This may lead to very confusing outcomes
when changing them. For example:

>>> t = (1, 2, 3, [1, 2, 3])

(1, 2, 3, [1, 2, 3])
>>> t[3] += [4, 5]

Will both raise an error and change the contents of the list within the tuple:

TypeError: 'tuple' object does not support item assignment

>>> t
(1, 2, 3, [1, 2, 3, 4, 5])

You can use the += operator to "append" to a tuple - this works by creating a new tuple with the new element you
"appended" and assign it to its current variable; the old tuple is not changed, but replaced!

This avoids converting to and from a list, but this is slow and is a bad practice, especially if you're going to append
multiple times.

Section 28.3: Packing and Unpacking Tuples

Tuples in Python are values separated by commas. Enclosing parentheses for inputting tuples are optional, so the
two assignments

a = 1, 2, 3 # a is the tuple (1, 2, 3)

and

a = (1, 2, 3) # a is the tuple (1, 2, 3)

are equivalent. The assignment a = 1, 2, 3 is also called packing because it packs values together in a tuple.

Note that a one-value tuple is also a tuple. To tell Python that a variable is a tuple and not a single value you can use

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a trailing comma

a = 1 # a is the value 1
a = 1, # a is the tuple (1,)

A comma is needed also if you use parentheses

a = (1,) # a is the tuple (1,)

a = (1) # a is the value 1 and not a tuple

To unpack values from a tuple and do multiple assignments use

# unpacking AKA multiple assignment

x, y, z = (1, 2, 3)
# x == 1
# y == 2
# z == 3

The symbol _ can be used as a disposable variable name if one only needs some elements of a tuple, acting as a
placeholder:

a = 1, 2, 3, 4
_, x, y, _ = a
# x == 2
# y == 3

Single element tuples:

x, = 1, # x is the value 1
x = 1, # x is the tuple (1,)

In Python 3 a target variable with a * prefix can be used as a catch-all variable (see Unpacking Iterables ):

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.0

first, *more, last = (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

# first == 1
# more == [2, 3, 4]
# last == 5

Section 28.4: Built-in Tuple Functions

Tuples support the following build-in functions

Comparison

If elements are of the same type, python performs the comparison and returns the result. If elements are different
types, it checks whether they are numbers.

If numbers, perform comparison.

If either element is a number, then the other element is returned.
Otherwise, types are sorted alphabetically .

If we reached the end of one of the lists, the longer list is "larger." If both list are same it returns 0.

tuple1 = ('a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e')

tuple2 = ('1','2','3')

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tuple3 = ('a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e')

cmp(tuple1, tuple2)
Out: 1

cmp(tuple2, tuple1)
Out: -1

cmp(tuple1, tuple3)
Out: 0

Tuple Length

The function len returns the total length of the tuple

len(tuple1)
Out: 5

Max of a tuple

The function max returns item from the tuple with the max value

max(tuple1)
Out: 'e'

max(tuple2)
Out: '3'

Min of a tuple

The function min returns the item from the tuple with the min value

min(tuple1)
Out: 'a'

min(tuple2)
Out: '1'

Convert a list into tuple

The built-in function tuple converts a list into a tuple.

list = [1,2,3,4,5]
tuple(list)
Out: (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Tuple concatenation

Use + to concatenate two tuples

tuple1 + tuple2
Out: ('a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', '1', '2', '3')

Section 28.5: Tuple Are Element-wise Hashable and Equatable

hash( (1, 2) ) # ok
hash( ([], {"hello"}) # not ok, since lists and sets are not hashabe

Thus a tuple can be put inside a set or as a key in a dict only if each of its elements can.

{ (1, 2) } # ok

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{ ([], {"hello"}) ) # not ok

Section 28.6: Indexing Tuples

x = (1, 2, 3)
x[0] # 1
x[1] # 2
x[2] # 3
x[3] # IndexError: tuple index out of range

Indexing with negative numbers will start from the last element as -1:

x[-1] # 3
x[-2] # 2
x[-3] # 1
x[-4] # IndexError: tuple index out of range

Indexing a range of elements

print(x[:-1]) # (1, 2)
print(x[-1:]) # (3,)
print(x[1:3]) # (2, 3)

Section 28.7: Reversing Elements

Reverse elements within a tuple

colors = "red", "green", "blue"

rev = colors[::-1]
# rev: ("blue", "green", "red")
colors = rev
# colors: ("blue", "green", "red")

Or using reversed (reversed gives an iterable which is converted to a tuple):

rev = tuple(reversed(colors))
# rev: ("blue", "green", "red")
colors = rev
# colors: ("blue", "green", "red")

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Chapter 29: Basic Input and Output
Section 29.1: Using the print function
Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.0

In Python 3, print functionality is in the form of a function:

print("This string will be displayed in the output")

# This string will be displayed in the output

print("You can print \n escape characters too.")

# You can print escape characters too.

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.3

In Python 2, print was originally a statement, as shown below.

print "This string will be displayed in the output"

# This string will be displayed in the output

print "You can print \n escape characters too."

# You can print escape characters too.

Note: using from __future__ import print_function in Python 2 will allow users to use the print() function the
same as Python 3 code. This is only available in Python 2.6 and above.

Section 29.2: Input from a File

Input can also be read from files. Files can be opened using the built-in function open. Using a with <command> as
<name> syntax (called a 'Context Manager') makes using open and getting a handle for the file super easy:

with open('somefile.txt', 'r') as fileobj:

# write code here using fileobj

This ensures that when code execution leaves the block the file is automatically closed.

Files can be opened in different modes. In the above example the file is opened as read-only. To open an existing
file for reading only use r. If you want to read that file as bytes use rb. To append data to an existing file use a. Use
w to create a file or overwrite any existing files of the same name. You can use r+ to open a file for both reading and
writing. The first argument of open() is the filename, the second is the mode. If mode is left blank, it will default to
r.

# let's create an example file:

with open('shoppinglist.txt', 'w') as fileobj:
fileobj.write('tomato\npasta\ngarlic')

with open('shoppinglist.txt', 'r') as fileobj:

# this method makes a list where each line
# of the file is an element in the list
lines = fileobj.readlines()

print(lines)
# ['tomato\n', 'pasta\n', 'garlic']

with open('shoppinglist.txt', 'r') as fileobj:

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 # here we read the whole content into one string:
content = fileobj.read()
# get a list of lines, just like int the previous example:
lines = content.split('\n')

print(lines)
# ['tomato', 'pasta', 'garlic']

If the size of the file is tiny, it is safe to read the whole file contents into memory. If the file is very large it is often
better to read line-by-line or by chunks, and process the input in the same loop. To do that:

with open('shoppinglist.txt', 'r') as fileobj:

# this method reads line by line:
lines = []
for line in fileobj:
lines.append(line.strip())

When reading files, be aware of the operating system-specific line-break characters. Although for line in
fileobj automatically strips them off, it is always safe to call strip() on the lines read, as it is shown above.

Opened files (fileobj in the above examples) always point to a specific location in the file. When they are first
opened the file handle points to the very beginning of the file, which is the position 0. The file handle can display its
current position with tell:

fileobj = open('shoppinglist.txt', 'r')

pos = fileobj.tell()
print('We are at %u.' % pos) # We are at 0.

Upon reading all the content, the file handler's position will be pointed at the end of the file:

content = fileobj.read()
end = fileobj.tell()
print('This file was %u characters long.' % end)
# This file was 22 characters long.
fileobj.close()

The file handler position can be set to whatever is needed:

fileobj = open('shoppinglist.txt', 'r')

fileobj.seek(7)
pos = fileobj.tell()
print('We are at character #%u.' % pos)

You can also read any length from the file content during a given call. To do this pass an argument for read().
When read() is called with no argument it will read until the end of the file. If you pass an argument it will read that
number of bytes or characters, depending on the mode (rb and r respectively):

# reads the next 4 characters

# starting at the current position
next4 = fileobj.read(4)
# what we got?
print(next4) # 'cucu'
# where we are now?
pos = fileobj.tell()
print('We are at %u.' % pos) # We are at 11, as we was at 7, and read 4 chars.

fileobj.close()

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To demonstrate the difference between characters and bytes:

with open('shoppinglist.txt', 'r') as fileobj:

print(type(fileobj.read())) # <class 'str'>

with open('shoppinglist.txt', 'rb') as fileobj:

print(type(fileobj.read())) # <class 'bytes'>

Section 29.3: Read from stdin

Python programs can read from unix pipelines. Here is a simple example how to read from stdin:

import sys

for line in sys.stdin:

print(line)

Be aware that sys.stdin is a stream. It means that the for-loop will only terminate when the stream has ended.

You can now pipe the output of another program into your python program as follows:

$ cat myfile | python myprogram.py

In this example cat myfile can be any unix command that outputs to stdout.

Alternatively, using the fileinput module can come in handy:

import fileinput
for line in fileinput.input():
process(line)

Section 29.4: Using input() and raw_input()

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.3

raw_input will wait for the user to enter text and then return the result as a string.

foo = raw_input("Put a message here that asks the user for input")

In the above example foo will store whatever input the user provides.

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.0

input will wait for the user to enter text and then return the result as a string.

foo = input("Put a message here that asks the user for input")

In the above example foo will store whatever input the user provides.

Section 29.5: Function to prompt user for a number

def input_number(msg, err_msg=None):
while True:
try:

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 return float(raw_input(msg))
except ValueError:
if err_msg is not None:
print(err_msg)

def input_number(msg, err_msg=None):

while True:
try:
return float(input(msg))
except ValueError:
if err_msg is not None:
print(err_msg)

And to use it:

user_number = input_number("input a number: ", "that's not a number!")

Or, if you do not want an "error message":

user_number = input_number("input a number: ")

Section 29.6: Printing a string without a newline at the end

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.3

In Python 2.x, to continue a line with print, end the print statement with a comma. It will automatically add a
space.

print "Hello,",
print "World!"
# Hello, World!

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.0

In Python 3.x, the print function has an optional end parameter that is what it prints at the end of the given string.
By default it's a newline character, so equivalent to this:

print("Hello, ", end="\n")

print("World!")
# Hello,
# World!

But you could pass in other strings

print("Hello, ", end="")

print("World!")
# Hello, World!

print("Hello, ", end="<br>")

print("World!")
# Hello, <br>World!

print("Hello, ", end="BREAK")

print("World!")
# Hello, BREAKWorld!

If you want more control over the output, you can use sys.stdout.write:

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import sys

sys.stdout.write("Hello, ")
sys.stdout.write("World!")
# Hello, World!

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Chapter 30: Files & Folders I/O
Parameter Details
filename the path to your file or, if the file is in the working directory, the filename of your file
access_mode a string value that determines how the file is opened
buffering an integer value used for optional line buffering

When it comes to storing, reading, or communicating data, working with the files of an operating system is both
necessary and easy with Python. Unlike other languages where file input and output requires complex reading and
writing objects, Python simplifies the process only needing commands to open, read/write and close the file. This
topic explains how Python can interface with files on the operating system.

Section 30.1: File modes

There are different modes you can open a file with, specified by the mode parameter. These include:

'r' - reading mode. The default. It allows you only to read the file, not to modify it. When using this mode the
file must exist.

'w' - writing mode. It will create a new file if it does not exist, otherwise will erase the file and allow you to
write to it.

'a' - append mode. It will write data to the end of the file. It does not erase the file, and the file must exist for
this mode.

'rb' - reading mode in binary. This is similar to r except that the reading is forced in binary mode. This is
also a default choice.

'r+' - reading mode plus writing mode at the same time. This allows you to read and write into files at the
same time without having to use r and w.

'rb+' - reading and writing mode in binary. The same as r+ except the data is in binary

'wb' - writing mode in binary. The same as w except the data is in binary.

'w+' - writing and reading mode. The exact same as r+ but if the file does not exist, a new one is made.
Otherwise, the file is overwritten.

'wb+' - writing and reading mode in binary mode. The same as w+ but the data is in binary.

'ab' - appending in binary mode. Similar to a except that the data is in binary.

'a+' - appending and reading mode. Similar to w+ as it will create a new file if the file does not exist.
Otherwise, the file pointer is at the end of the file if it exists.

'ab+' - appending and reading mode in binary. The same as a+ except that the data is in binary.

with open(filename, 'r') as f:

f.read()
with open(filename, 'w') as f:
f.write(filedata)
with open(filename, 'a') as f:
f.write('\\n' + newdata)

r r+ w w+ a a+
Read ✔ ✔ ✘ ✔ ✘ ✔

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Write ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Creates file ✘ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Erases file ✘ ✘ ✔ ✔ ✘ ✘
Initial position Start Start Start Start End End

Python 3 added a new mode for exclusive creation so that you will not accidentally truncate or overwrite and
existing file.

'x' - open for exclusive creation, will raise FileExistsError if the file already exists
'xb' - open for exclusive creation writing mode in binary. The same as x except the data is in binary.
'x+' - reading and writing mode. Similar to w+ as it will create a new file if the file does not exist. Otherwise,
will raise FileExistsError.
'xb+' - writing and reading mode. The exact same as x+ but the data is binary

x x+
Read ✘ ✔
Write ✔ ✔
Creates file ✔ ✔
Erases file ✘ ✘
Initial position Start Start

Allow one to write your file open code in a more pythonic manner:

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.3

try:
with open("fname", "r") as fout:
# Work with your open file
except FileExistsError:
# Your error handling goes here

In Python 2 you would have done something like

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.0

import os.path
if os.path.isfile(fname):
with open("fname", "w") as fout:
# Work with your open file
else:
# Your error handling goes here

Section 30.2: Reading a file line-by-line

The simplest way to iterate over a file line-by-line:

with open('myfile.txt', 'r') as fp:

for line in fp:
print(line)

readline() allows for more granular control over line-by-line iteration. The example below is equivalent to the one
above:

with open('myfile.txt', 'r') as fp:

while True:
cur_line = fp.readline()

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 # If the result is an empty string
if cur_line == '':
# We have reached the end of the file
break
print(cur_line)

Using the for loop iterator and readline() together is considered bad practice.

More commonly, the readlines() method is used to store an iterable collection of the file's lines:

with open("myfile.txt", "r") as fp:

lines = fp.readlines()
for i in range(len(lines)):
print("Line " + str(i) + ": " + line)

This would print the following:

Line 0: hello

Line 1: world

Section 30.3: Iterate files (recursively)

To iterate all files, including in sub directories, use os.walk:

import os
for root, folders, files in os.walk(root_dir):
for filename in files:
print root, filename

root_dir can be "." to start from current directory, or any other path to start from.

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.5

If you also wish to get information about the file, you may use the more efficient method os.scandir like so:

for entry in os.scandir(path):

if not entry.name.startswith('.') and entry.is_file():
print(entry.name)

Section 30.4: Getting the full contents of a file

The preferred method of file i/o is to use the with keyword. This will ensure the file handle is closed once the
reading or writing has been completed.

with open('myfile.txt') as in_file:

content = in_file.read()

print(content)

or, to handle closing the file manually, you can forgo with and simply call close yourself:

in_file = open('myfile.txt', 'r')

content = in_file.read()
print(content)

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in_file.close()

Keep in mind that without using a with statement, you might accidentally keep the file open in case an unexpected
exception arises like so:

in_file = open('myfile.txt', 'r')

raise Exception("oops")
in_file.close() # This will never be called

Section 30.5: Writing to a file

with open('myfile.txt', 'w') as f:
f.write("Line 1")
f.write("Line 2")
f.write("Line 3")
f.write("Line 4")

If you open myfile.txt, you will see that its contents are:

Line 1Line 2Line 3Line 4

Python doesn't automatically add line breaks, you need to do that manually:

with open('myfile.txt', 'w') as f:

f.write("Line 1\n")
f.write("Line 2\n")
f.write("Line 3\n")
f.write("Line 4\n")

Line 1
Line 2
Line 3
Line 4

Do not use os.linesep as a line terminator when writing files opened in text mode (the default); use \n instead.

If you want to specify an encoding, you simply add the encoding parameter to the open function:

with open('my_file.txt', 'w', encoding='utf-8') as f:

f.write('utf-8 text')

It is also possible to use the print statement to write to a file. The mechanics are different in Python 2 vs Python 3,
but the concept is the same in that you can take the output that would have gone to the screen and send it to a file
instead.

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.0

with open('fred.txt', 'w') as outfile:

s = "I'm Not Dead Yet!"
print(s) # writes to stdout
print(s, file = outfile) # writes to outfile

#Note: it is possible to specify the file parameter AND write to the screen
#by making sure file ends up with a None value either directly or via a variable

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 myfile = None
print(s, file = myfile) # writes to stdout
print(s, file = None) # writes to stdout

In Python 2 you would have done something like

Python 2.x Version ≥ 2.0

outfile = open('fred.txt', 'w')

s = "I'm Not Dead Yet!"
print s # writes to stdout
print >> outfile, s # writes to outfile

Unlike using the write function, the print function does automatically add line breaks.

Section 30.6: Check whether a file or path exists

Employ the EAFP coding style and try to open it.

import errno

try:
with open(path) as f:
# File exists
except IOError as e:
# Raise the exception if it is not ENOENT (No such file or directory)
if e.errno != errno.ENOENT:
raise
# No such file or directory

This will also avoid race-conditions if another process deleted the file between the check and when it is used. This
race condition could happen in the following cases:

Using the os module:

import os
os.path.isfile('/path/to/some/file.txt')

Python 3.x Version ≥ 3.4

Using pathlib:

import pathlib
path = pathlib.Path('/path/to/some/file.txt')
if path.is_file():
...

To check whether a given path exists or not, you can follow the above EAFP procedure, or explicitly check the path:

import os
path = "/home/myFiles/directory1"

if os.path.exists(path):
## Do stuff

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