Mind-blowing Python tips

0 - Loop over a range of numbers

Use range instead of xrange. In python3, the former creates an iterator that produces the values one at a time making it much more efficient and fast.

nums = [0,2, 34, 55, 32]
for i in range(nums):
    print i

1 - Looping backwards

.reversed use Just

names = ["Case", "Molly", "Armitage", "Maelcum"]
for name in reversed(names):
    print name

2 - Looping over a list and its indices

To keep track of the index of each item in a collection, enumerate is your buddy.

names = ["Case", "Molly", "Armitage", "Maelcum"]
for index, name in enumerate(names):
    print index, name

3 - Looping over two lists simultaneously

Yeah you could use zip, but izip is faster, so use that instead.

from itertools import izip

names = ["Case", "Molly", "Armitage", "Maelcum"]
ages = [23, 27, 41, 24]
for name, age in izip(names, ages):
    print name, age

4 - Looping over a sorted list

You can sort out the list first and then loop through it, or you could use sorted.

names = ["Case", "Molly", "Armitage", "Maelcum"]
for name in sorted(names):
    print name

And BAM, you're ... sorted.

5 - Call a function until a sentinel value is returned

To do that, use iter().

Bad example:

Loop over a file containing a list of names until the loop returns an empty string, in which case we break out of it.

names = []
while True:
    name = file.read(32)
    if name = "":
        break
    names.append(name)

Beautiful example:

In this case, we call a function (f.read) until it returns the sentinel value passed as a second argument to iter. That way we avoid having to make the unnecessary if check.

for name in iter( partial(f.read(32)), ""):
    print name

6 - Looping over a dictionary

The normal way to do it:

molly = { "name": "Molly Millions", "Age": 27, "Occupation": "Professional Killer"}

for key in molly:
    print key

If you wish to mutate the data, prefer dict.keys().

molly = { "name": "Molly Millions", "Age": 27, "Occupation": "Professional Killer"}

for key in molly.keys():
    # do the mutation

7 - Looping over a dict keys AND values

Don't do this:

molly = { "name": "Molly Millions", "Age": 27, "Occupation": "Professional Killer"}

for key in molly:
    print molly[key]

It's slow because we have to rehash the dictionary and do a lookup everytime.

Instead choose iteritems():

molly = { "name": "Molly Millions", "Age": 27, "Occupation": "Professional Killer"}

for key, value in molly.iteritems():
    print key, value

8 - Create a dict out of two lists

Just instantiate a new dict with two zipped lists. Real magic.

from itertools import izip

names = ["Case", "Molly", "Armitage", "Maelcum"]
ages = [23, 27, 41, 24]

characters = dict(izip(names, ages))

9 - Use named tuples for returning multiple values

Like in the case of an API response in Flask.

from collections import namedtuple

Response = namedtuple('APIResponse', ['status_code', 'body', 'headers'])

@app.route('/users/1'):

    try:
        user = db.getuserbyid(1)
    except:
        return Response(404, user.notfound(), {'content-type': 'application/json'}
    else:
        return Response(200, user.json(), {'content-type': 'application/json'}

Other

• Always clarify function calls by using keyword arguments

If you learned something from this article, share it with your co-workers and fellow hackers. If you notice any typo, error etc let me know on twitter.