30 Helpful Python Snippets You Can Learn in 30 Seconds

The article introduces a collection of thirty short Python snippets designed to help learners practice real‑world tasks quickly, each accompanied by a brief explanation.

1. Duplicate element detection : def all_unique(lst): return len(lst) == len(set(lst)) returns False for a list with repeats and True otherwise.

2. Anagram check : from collections import Counter def anagram(first, second): return Counter(first) == Counter(second) verifies whether two strings contain the same characters.

3. Memory size of an integer : import sys variable = 30 print(sys.getsizeof(variable)) # 24

4. Byte size of a string : def byte_size(string): return len(string.encode('utf-8')) byte_size('Hello World') # 11

5. Print a string N times without a loop : n = 2 s = "Programming" print(s * n) # ProgrammingProgramming

6. Capitalize first letter of each word : s = "programming is awesome" print(s.title()) # Programming Is Awesome

7. Chunk a list into fixed‑size pieces : from math import ceil def chunk(lst, size): return list(map(lambda x: lst[x*size:x*size+size], range(0, ceil(len(lst)/size)))) chunk([1,2,3,4,5], 2) # [[1,2],[3,4],[5]]

8. Remove falsy values : def compact(lst): return list(filter(bool, lst)) compact([0,1,False,2,'',3,'a','s',34]) # [1,2,3,'a','s',34]

9. Unzip a list of pairs : array = [['a','b'],['c','d'],['e','f']] transposed = zip(*array) print(list(transposed)) # [('a','c','e'),('b','d','f')]

10. List difference : def difference(a, b): set_a, set_b = set(a), set(b) return list(set_a.difference(set_b)) difference([1,2,3], [1,2,4]) # [3]

11. Difference by applying a function : def difference_by(a, b, fn): b = set(map(fn, b)) return [item for item in a if fn(item) not in b] difference_by([2.1,1.2], [2.3,3.4], floor) # [1.2]

12. Chained comparison : a = 3 print(2 < a < 8) # True print(1 == a < 2) # False

13. Join list elements with commas : hobbies = ["basketball","football","swimming"] print("My hobbies are: " + ", ".join(hobbies)) # My hobbies are: basketball, football, swimming

14. Count vowels using regex : import re def count_vowels(s): return len(re.findall(r'[aeiou]', s, re.IGNORECASE)) count_vowels('foobar') # 3

15. Lowercase first character : def decapitalize(string): return string[:1].lower() + string[1:] decapitalize('FooBar') # 'fooBar'

16. Flatten a nested list : def spread(arg): ret = [] for i in arg: if isinstance(i, list): ret.extend(i) else: ret.append(i) return ret def deep_flatten(lst): result = [] result.extend(spread(list(map(lambda x: deep_flatten(x) if type(x) == list else x, lst)))) return result deep_flatten([1,[2],[[3],4],5]) # [1,2,3,4,5]

17. List elements not present in another list : def difference(a, b): return list(set(a).difference(set(b))) difference([1,2,3], [1,2,4]) # [3]

18. Find most frequent element : def most_frequent(lst): return max(set(lst), key=lst.count) most_frequent([1,2,1,2,3,2,1,4,2]) # 2

19. Palindrome check : import re def palindrome(string): s = re.sub(r'[\W_]', '', string.lower()) return s == s[::-1] palindrome('taco cat') # True

20. Operator dictionary for arithmetic without if‑else : import operator action = {"+": operator.add, "-": operator.sub, "/": operator.truediv, "*": operator.mul, "**": pow} print(action['-'](50, 25)) # 25

21. Shuffle a list (Fisher‑Yates) : from copy import deepcopy from random import randint def shuffle(lst): temp = deepcopy(lst) m = len(temp) while m: m -= 1 i = randint(0, m) temp[m], temp[i] = temp[i], temp[m] return temp shuffle([1,2,3]) # e.g., [2,3,1]

22. Measure execution time : import time start = time.time() # code to measure end = time.time() print('Time:', end - start)

23. Try/except with else clause : try: 2 * 3 except TypeError: print('An exception was raised') else: print('Thank God, no exceptions were raised.')

24. Most common element (frequency) : def most_frequent(lst): return max(set(lst), key=lst.count)

25. Convert two lists to a dictionary : def to_dictionary(keys, values): return dict(zip(keys, values)) keys = ["a","b","c"] values = [2,3,4] print(to_dictionary(keys, values)) # {'a': 2, 'b': 3, 'c': 4}

26. Enumerate list with index : lst = ["a","b","c","d"] for index, element in enumerate(lst): print("Value", element, "Index", index)

27. Measure code execution time : (see snippet 22).

28. Swap two variables without a temporary variable : def swap(a, b): return b, a a, b = -1, 14 print(swap(a, b)) # (14, -1)

29. Dictionary get with default value : d = {'a': 1, 'b': 2} print(d.get('c', 3)) # 3

These snippets provide quick, ready‑to‑use solutions for everyday Python programming challenges, making them valuable for both learning and rapid development.