20 Practical Python Tips and Tricks for Everyday Coding

Python is a versatile, easy‑to‑read programming language; this article presents a collection of practical Python tricks to improve coding efficiency.

1. Reverse a string

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

2. Convert a string to title case

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

3. Find unique characters in a string

my_string = "aavvccccddddeee"
temp_set = set(my_string)
new_string = "".join(temp_set)
print(new_string)

4. Repeat a string or list n times

n = 3
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]

5. Create a list of zeros

n = 4
my_list = [0] * n
print(my_list)  # [0, 0, 0, 0]

6. List comprehension to double each element

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

7. Swap values of two variables

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

8. Split a string into a list of substrings

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

9. Join a list of strings into a single string

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

10. Check if a string is a palindrome

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

11. Count frequency of elements in a list

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)]

12. Find if two strings are anagrams

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

13. Use try‑except‑else‑finally for error handling

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

14. Enumerate a list to get index‑value pairs

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

15. Check memory usage of an object

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

16. Merge two dictionaries

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}

17. Measure execution time of a code block

import time
start_time = time.time()
# code to measure
a, b = 1, 2
c = a + b
end_time = time.time()
time_taken_us = (end_time - start_time) * 1_000_000
print(f"Time taken: {time_taken_us} µs")

18. Flatten a nested list

# Simple one‑level flatten
flatten = lambda l: [item for sublist in l for item in sublist]
l = [[1,2,3],[3]]
print(flatten(l))  # [1, 2, 3, 3]
# Deep flatten using iteration_utilities
from iteration_utilities import deepflatten
l = [[1,2,3],[4,[5],[6,7]],[8,[9,[10]]]]
print(list(deepflatten(l, depth=3)))  # [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]

19. Randomly sample elements from a list

import random
my_list = ['a','b','c','d','e']
samples = random.sample(my_list, 2)
print(samples)  # e.g., ['a', 'e']

20. Check if all elements in a list are unique

def unique(l):
    if len(l) == len(set(l)):
        print("All elements are unique")
    else:
        print("List has duplicates")
unique([1,2,3,4])   # All elements are unique
unique([1,1,2,3])   # List has duplicates