Essential Python Tips and Tricks from A to Z

This article gathers a wide range of useful Python tips and tricks, organized alphabetically, to help developers improve productivity and code quality.

ALL OR ANY

Python’s readability makes it popular; the all and any functions are handy for checking iterable contents.

x = [True, True, False]
if any(x):
    print("At least one True")
if all(x):
    print("Not one False")
if any(x) and not all(x):
    print("At least one True and one False")

BASHPLOTIB

Install bashplotlib to draw plots directly in the console.

$ pip install bashplotlib

COLLECTIONS

The collections module provides specialized container datatypes such as OrderedDict and Counter.

from collections import OrderedDict, Counter
# Remembers the order the keys are added!
x = OrderedDict(a=1, b=2, c=3)
# Counts the frequency of each character
y = Counter("Hello World!")

DIR

Use dir() to inspect the attributes of any Python object.

>> dir()
>>> dir("Hello World")
>>> dir(dir)

More details: Python docs – dir()

EMOJI

Install the emoji package to work with emoticons.

$ pip install emoji

Example:

from emoji import emojize
print(emojize(":thumbs_up:"))

FROM_FUTURE_IMPORT

The __future__ module lets you import features from upcoming Python versions.

from __future__ import print_function
print("Hello World!")

GEOPY

The geopy library simplifies geocoding and distance calculations.

$ pip install geopy

Example usage:

from geopy import GoogleV3
place = "221b Baker Street, London"
location = GoogleV3().geocode(place)
print(location.address)
print(location.location)

HOWDOI

The howdoi command‑line tool fetches quick answers from StackOverflow.

$ pip install howdoi
$ howdoi vertical align css
$ howdoi for loop in java
$ howdoi undo commits in git

Note: it returns only the top‑voted answer, which may not always be the most suitable.

INSPECT

The inspect module can retrieve source code, module information, and line numbers of objects.

import inspect
print(inspect.getsource(inspect.getsource))
print(inspect.getmodule(inspect.getmodule))
print(inspect.currentframe().f_lineno)

JEDI

Jedi provides static analysis and autocompletion for Python editors.

**KWARGS

Using **kwargs allows a dictionary to be expanded into named arguments.

dictionary = {"a": 1, "b": 2}

def someFunction(a, b):
    print(a + b)
    return

# both calls are equivalent
someFunction(**dictionary)
someFunction(a=1, b=2)

LIST COMPREHENSIONS

List comprehensions create lists in a concise, readable way.

numbers = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
evens = [x for x in numbers if x % 2 is 0]
odds = [y for y in numbers if y not in evens]

cities = ['London', 'Dublin', 'Oslo']

def visit(city):
    print("Welcome to " + city)

for city in cities:
    visit(city)

MAP

The built‑in map() function applies a function to each item of an iterable.

x = [1, 2, 3]
y = map(lambda x: x + 1, x)
# prints out [2, 3, 4]
print(list(y))

NEWSPAPER3K

The newspaper3k library extracts articles, metadata, and images from online news sites.

$ pip install newspaper3k

OPERATOR OVERLOADING

Define special methods like __gt__ and __lt__ to customize the behavior of operators.

class Thing:
    def __init__(self, value):
        self.__value = value
    def __gt__(self, other):
        return self.__value > other.__value
    def __lt__(self, other):
        return self.__value < other.__value

something = Thing(100)
nothing = Thing(0)
# True
something > nothing
# False
something < nothing
# Error – + not defined
something + nothing

PPRINT

The pprint module pretty‑prints complex data structures.

import requests
import pprint
url = 'https://randomuser.me/api/?results=1'
users = requests.get(url).json()
pprint.pprint(users)

QUEUE

The queue module implements FIFO, LIFO, and priority queues for multithreaded programs.

__repr__

Implement __repr__ to provide a readable string representation of objects.

>> file = open('file.txt', 'r')
>>> print(file)
<open file 'file.txt', mode 'r' at 0x10d30aaf0>

class someClass:
    def __repr__(self):
        return "<some description here>"

someInstance = someClass()
# prints <some description here>
print(someInstance)

sh

The sh library lets you run shell commands as if they were Python functions.

import sh
sh.pwd()
sh.mkdir('new_folder')
sh.touch('new_file.txt')
sh.whoami()
sh.echo('This is great!')

TYPE HINT

Python 3.5+ supports optional type hints to improve code clarity and enable static analysis.

def addTwo(x: int) -> int:
    return x + 2

from typing import List
Vector = List[float]
Matrix = List[Vector]

def addMatrix(a: Matrix, b: Matrix) -> Matrix:
    result = []
    for i, row in enumerate(a):
        result_row = []
        for j, col in enumerate(row):
            result_row += [a[i][j] + b[i][j]]
        result += [result_row]
    return result

x = [[1.0, 0.0], [0.0, 1.0]]
y = [[2.0, 1.0], [0.0, -2.0]]
z = addMatrix(x, y)

UUID

Generate universally unique identifiers with the uuid module.

import uuid
user_id = uuid.uuid4()
print(user_id)

VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS

Create isolated Python environments to manage different project dependencies.

python -m venv my-project
source my-project/bin/activate
pip install all-the-modules

WIKIPEDIA

The wikipedia package provides a simple API to fetch Wikipedia pages.

import wikipedia
result = wikipedia.page('freeCodeCamp')
print(result.summary)
for link in result.links:
    print(link)

YAML

Use PyYAML to read and write YAML files, a superset of JSON.

$ pip install pyyaml
import yaml

ZIP

The built‑in zip() function aggregates elements from multiple iterables into tuples.

keys = ['a', 'b', 'c']
vals = [1, 2, 3]
zipped = dict(zip(keys, vals))

Mastering these concise Python techniques will help you become more efficient and confident in writing clean, maintainable code.