20 Essential Python Tricks to Boost Your Coding Efficiency

Python's readability and simplicity make it popular; this article presents 20 practical Python tricks to improve code readability and save development time.

String reversal

Use slicing to reverse a string:

# Reversing a string using slicing
my_string = "ABCDE"
reversed_string = my_string[::-1]
print(reversed_string)  # EDCBA

Capitalize first letter of each word

Apply the title() method:

my_string = "my name is chaitanya baweja"
new_string = my_string.title()
print(new_string)  # My Name Is Chaitanya Baweja

Find unique characters in a string

Convert the string to a set and join back:

my_string = "aavvccccddddeee"
temp_set = set(my_string)
new_string = ''.join(temp_set)
print(new_string)  # cdvae (order may vary)

Repeat a string or list n times

Use the multiplication operator:

n = 3  # number of repetitions
my_string = "abcd"
my_list = [1, 2, 3]
print(my_string * n)  # abcdabcdabcd
print(my_list * n)    # [1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3]

List comprehension to multiply each element

Multiply each element by 2 using a list comprehension:

original_list = [1, 2, 3, 4]
new_list = [2 * x for x in original_list]
print(new_list)  # [2, 4, 6, 8]

Variable swapping

Swap two variables without a temporary variable:

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

Split a string into a list

Use split() with default or custom separators:

string_1 = "My name is Chaitanya Baweja"
string_2 = "sample/ string 2"
print(string_1.split())          # ['My', 'name', 'is', 'Chaitanya', 'Baweja']
print(string_2.split('/'))       # ['sample', ' string 2']

Combine a list of strings into one string

Join list elements with a comma separator:

list_of_strings = ['My', 'name', 'is', 'Chaitanya', 'Baweja']
print(','.join(list_of_strings))  # My,name,is,Chaitanya,Baweja

Check if a string is a palindrome

Compare the string with its reverse:

my_string = "abcba"
if my_string == my_string[::-1]:
    print("palindrome")
else:
    print("not palindrome")
# Output: palindrome

Count element frequencies in a list

Use collections.Counter:

from collections import Counter
my_list = ['a','a','b','b','b','c','d','d','d','d','d']
count = Counter(my_list)
print(count)          # Counter({'d': 5, 'b': 3, 'a': 2, 'c': 1})
print(count['b'])    # 3
print(count.most_common(1))  # [('d', 5)]

Check if two strings are anagrams

Compare character counts using Counter:

from collections import Counter
str_1, str_2, str_3 = "acbde", "abced", "abcda"
cnt_1, cnt_2, cnt_3 = Counter(str_1), Counter(str_2), Counter(str_3)
if cnt_1 == cnt_2:
    print('1 and 2 anagram')
if cnt_1 == cnt_3:
    print('1 and 3 anagram')
# Output: 1 and 2 anagram

Exception handling with try‑except‑else‑finally

Demonstrate full exception block structure:

a, b = 1, 0
try:
    print(a / b)
except ZeroDivisionError:
    print("division by zero")
else:
    print("no exceptions raised")
finally:
    print("Run this always")
# Output:
# division by zero
# Run this always

Enumerate a list to get index/value pairs

Use enumerate():

my_list = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e']
for index, value in enumerate(my_list):
    print('{0}: {1}'.format(index, value))
# 0: a
# 1: b
# 2: c
# 3: d
# 4: e

Check object memory usage

Use sys.getsizeof():

import sys
num = 21
print(sys.getsizeof(num))  # 28 in Python 3

Merge dictionaries

Combine two dictionaries using unpacking:

dict_1 = {'apple': 9, 'banana': 6}
dict_2 = {'banana': 4, 'orange': 8}
combined_dict = {**dict_1, **dict_2}
print(combined_dict)  # {'apple': 9, 'banana': 4, 'orange': 8}

Measure execution time of a code block

Use time.time() to calculate elapsed microseconds:

import time
start_time = time.time()
for i in range(10**5):
    a, b = 1, 2
    c = a + b
end_time = time.time()
time_taken_in_micro = (end_time - start_time) * (10**6)
print(time_taken_in_micro)

Additional useful snippets

Combine multiple strings into one:

list_of_strings = ['My', 'name', 'is', 'Chaitanya', 'Baweja']
print(' '.join(list_of_strings))

Check if a string is a palindrome (alternative method):

my_string = "abcba"
print('palindrome' if my_string == my_string[::-1] else 'not palindrome')

These snippets illustrate concise, Pythonic ways to handle common programming tasks, making your code cleaner and more efficient.