17 Must‑Know Python Tricks to Boost Your Coding Efficiency

"Python is a truly wonderful language. When someone proposes a good idea, it takes about one minute and five lines of code to write something that almost does what you want. Then you can expand the script to 300 lines in an hour, and it still almost meets your needs." – Jack Jensen

Below are 17 useful Python development tricks.

1. Print a string N times

Use multiplication to repeat a string instead of a loop.

string = "Python "
ntimes = string * 3
print(ntimes)  # Python Python Python

2. Return multiple values from a function

def Mulvalues():
    return 1, 2, 3

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

3. Get the file path of an imported module

import os
import json
import tkinter

print(os)
print(tkinter)
print(json)

4. Fast method to reverse a string

string1 = "Coder"
string2 = "Algorithm"
print(string1[::-1])  # redoC
print(string2[::-1])  # mhtiroglA

5. Multiple assignment

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

6. Quickly remove duplicate items

lst1 = [1, 3, 3, 4, 5, 1]
lst2 = ["A", "A", "B", "C", "D", "D"]
newlst1 = list(set(lst1))
newlst2 = list(set(lst2))
print(newlst1)  # [1, 3, 4, 5]
print(newlst2)  # ['C', 'D', 'A', 'B']

7. String formatting

name = "Haider"
skill = "Python"
# method 1
text = "My name is {n} and I'm a {s} Expert".format(**{"n": name, "s": skill})
print(text)
# method 2
text = "My name is {} and I'm a {} Expert".format(name, skill)
print(text)
# f‑string
text = f"My name is {name} and I'm a {skill} Expert"
print(text)

8. Check an object's memory usage

import sys
val = 500
print(sys.getsizeof(val))  # 28

9. Initialize empty containers

my_list = list()
my_dict = dict()
my_tuple = tuple()
my_set = set()
print(my_list)  # []
print(my_dict)  # {}

10. Reverse a list

my_list1 = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 100]
my_list2 = ["A", "B", "C"]
print(my_list1[::-1])  # [100, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1]
print(my_list2[::-1])  # ['C', 'B', 'A']

11. Reverse a dictionary

dict = {'x': 1, 'y': 2, 'z': 3}
new_dict = {value: key for key, value in dict.items()}
print(new_dict)  # {1: 'x', 2: 'y', 3: 'z'}

12. Advanced multiple assignment

a, *b, c, d = 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
print(a, b, c, d)  # 3 [4, 5] 6 7

13. Fast way to join strings

lst = ["I'm", "a", "Programmer"]
text = " ".join(lst)
print(text)  # I'm a Programmer

14. Merge two dictionaries

a = {"a": 1, "b": 2}
b = {"c": 3, "d": 4}
c = {**a, **b}
print(c)  # {'a': 1, 'b': 2, 'c': 3, 'd': 4}

15. Change recursion limit

import sys
current_limit = sys.getrecursionlimit()
print(current_limit)  # 1000
sys.setrecursionlimit(5000)
print(sys.getrecursionlimit())  # 5000

16. Multi‑prefix search

string1 = "www.medium.com"
if string1.startswith(("www", "http")):
    print("True")
if string1.endswith(("com", "co.uk")):
    print("True")

17. IF statement tip

a = [1, 2, 3]
# slower way
if a[0] == 1 or a[1] == 1 or a[2] == 1:
    print("Number is present in the list")
# faster way
if 1 in a:
    print("Number is present in the list")