Some awesome python tricks, which can be very helpful sometimes. Sometimes they are fun to learn :)

Cool Python Tricks

Reversing a string in Python

In [8]: aa = "nilesh"

In [9]: print ("Reverse is: {0}".format(aa[::-1]))
Reverse is: hselin

zip - Transpose a matrix

In [1]: aa = [[1,2,3,4],[5,6,7,8]]

In [2]: zip(*aa)
Out[2]: [(1, 5), (2, 6), (3, 7), (4, 8)]

Divide a list into groups of n

In [12]: aa = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]

In [13]: zip(*[iter(aa)] * 2)
Out[13]: [(1, 2), (3, 4), (5, 6), (7, 8), (9, 10), (11, 12)]

In [14]: zip(*[iter(aa)] * 3)
Out[14]: [(1, 2, 3), (4, 5, 6), (7, 8, 9), (10, 11, 12)]

Import this

In [15]: import this
The Zen of Python, by Tim Peters

Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules.
Although practicality beats purity.
Errors should never pass silently.
Unless explicitly silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.
Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch.
Now is better than never.
Although never is often better than *right* now.
If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!

Create Infinity and Negative Infinity

In [26]: inf = float("inf")

In [27]: 999999999999 > inf
Out[27]: False

In [30]: negative_inf = float("-inf")

In [31]: 999999999999 > inf
Out[31]: True

Need to know index while iterating the list ?

In [33]: aa = [1,2,3,4]

In [34]: for i, a in enumerate(aa):
   ....:     print ("index: {0}, value: {1}".format(i, a))
   ....:     
index: 0, value: 1
index: 1, value: 2
index: 2, value: 3
index: 3, value: 4

Reverse a list ?

In [48]: aa = [1,2,3,4]

In [49]: aa[::-1]
Out[49]: [4, 3, 2, 1]

I’ll add more tricks, once I’ll get some time. Awesome python and it’s lovely tricks can amaze anybody :)