Python

Basic cheatsheet for Python mostly based on the book written by Al Sweigart, Automate the Boring Stuff with Python under the Creative Commons license and many other sources.

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The Zen of Python

From the PEP 20 — The Zen of Python:

Long time Pythoneer Tim Peters succinctly channels the BDFL’s guiding principles for Python’s design into 20 aphorisms, only 19 of which have been written down.

import this

Python Basics

Math Operators

From Highest to Lowest precedence:

Examples of expressions in the interactive shell:

2 + 3 * 6

(2 + 3) * 6

2 ** 8

23 // 7

23 % 7

(5 - 1) * ((7 + 1) / (3 - 1))

Data Types

String Concatenation and Replication

String concatenation:

'Alice' 'Bob'

Note: Avoid + operator for string concatenation. Prefer string formatting.

String Replication:

'Alice' * 5

Variables

You can name a variable anything as long as it obeys the following three rules:

1. It can be only one word.
2. It can use only letters, numbers, and the underscore (_) character.
3. It can’t begin with a number.
4. Variable name starting with an underscore (_) are considered as “unuseful`.

Example:

spam = 'Hello'

_spam = 'Hello'

_spam should not be used again in the code.

Comments

Inline comment:

# This is a comment

Multiline comment:

# This is a
# multiline comment

Code with a comment:

a = 1  # initialization

Please note the two spaces in front of the comment.

Function docstring:

def foo():
    """
    This is a function docstring
    You can also use:
    ''' Function Docstring '''
    """

The print Function

print('Hello world!')

a = 1
print('Hello world!', a)

The input Function

Example Code:

print('What is your name?')   # ask for their name
myName = input()
print('It is good to meet you, {}'.format(myName))

The len Function

Evaluates to the integer value of the number of characters in a string:

len('hello')

Note: test of emptiness of strings, lists, dictionary, etc, should not use len, but prefer direct boolean evaluation.

a = [1, 2, 3]
if a:
    print("the list is not empty!")

The str, int, and float Functions

Integer to String or Float:

str(29)

print('I am {} years old.'.format(str(29)))

str(-3.14)

Float to Integer:

int(7.7)

int(7.7) + 1

Flow Control

Comparison Operators

These operators evaluate to True or False depending on the values you give them.

Examples:

42 == 42

40 == 42

'hello' == 'hello'

'hello' == 'Hello'

'dog' != 'cat'

42 == 42.0

42 == '42'

Boolean evaluation

Never use == or != operator to evaluate boolean operation. Use the is or is not operators, or use implicit boolean evaluation.

NO (even if they are valid Python):

True == True

True != False

YES (even if they are valid Python):

True is True

True is not False

These statements are equivalent:

if a is True:
   pass
if a is not False:
   pass
if a:
   pass

And these as well:

if a is False:
   pass
if a is not True:
   pass
if not a:
   pass

Boolean Operators

There are three Boolean operators: and, or, and not.

The and Operator’s Truth Table:

The or Operator’s Truth Table:

The not Operator’s Truth Table:

Mixing Boolean and Comparison Operators

(4 < 5) and (5 < 6)

(4 < 5) and (9 < 6)

(1 == 2) or (2 == 2)

You can also use multiple Boolean operators in an expression, along with the comparison operators:

2 + 2 == 4 and not 2 + 2 == 5 and 2 * 2 == 2 + 2

if Statements

if name == 'Alice':
    print('Hi, Alice.')

else Statements

name = 'Bob'

if name == 'Alice':
    print('Hi, Alice.')
else:
    print('Hello, stranger.')

elif Statements

name = 'Bob'
age = 5

if name == 'Alice':
    print('Hi, Alice.')
elif age < 12:
    print('You are not Alice, kiddo.')

name = 'Bob'
age = 30

if name == 'Alice':
    print('Hi, Alice.')
elif age < 12:
    print('You are not Alice, kiddo.')
else:
    print('You are neither Alice nor a little kid.')

while Loop Statements

spam = 0

while spam < 5:
    print('Hello, world.')
    spam = spam + 1

break Statements

If the execution reaches a break statement, it immediately exits the while loop’s clause:

while True:
    print('Please type your name.')
    name = input()
    if name == 'your name':
        break

print('Thank you!')

continue Statements

When the program execution reaches a continue statement, the program execution immediately jumps back to the start of the loop.

while True:
    print('Who are you?')
    name = input()
    if name != 'Joe':
        continue
    print('Hello, Joe. What is the password? (It is a fish.)')
    password = input()
    if password == 'swordfish':
        break

print('Access granted.')

for Loops and the range() Function

print('My name is')
for i in range(5):
    print('Jimmy Five Times ({})'.format(str(i)))

The range() function can also be called with three arguments. The first two arguments will be the start and stop values, and the third will be the step argument. The step is the amount that the variable is increased by after each iteration.

for i in range(0, 10, 2):
   print(i)

You can even use a negative number for the step argument to make the for loop count down instead of up.

for i in range(5, -1, -1):
    print(i)

For else statement

This allows to specify a statement to execute in case of the full loop has been executed. Only useful when a break condition can occur in the loop:

for i in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]:
   if i == 3:
       break
else:
   print("only executed when no item of the list is equal to 3")

Importing Modules

import random

for i in range(5):
    print(random.randint(1, 10))

import random, sys, os, math

from random import *.

Ending a Program with sys.exit

import sys

while True:
    print('Type exit to exit.')
    response = input()
    if response == 'exit':
        sys.exit()
    print('You typed {}.'.format(response))

Functions

def hello(name):
    print('Hello {}'.format(name))

Return Values and return Statements

When creating a function using the def statement, you can specify what the return value should be with a return statement. A return statement consists of the following:

• The return keyword.
• The value or expression that the function should return.

import random
def getAnswer(answerNumber):
    if answerNumber == 1:
        return 'It is certain'
    elif answerNumber == 2:
        return 'It is decidedly so'
    elif answerNumber == 3:
        return 'Yes'
    elif answerNumber == 4:
        return 'Reply hazy try again'
    elif answerNumber == 5:
        return 'Ask again later'
    elif answerNumber == 6:
        return 'Concentrate and ask again'
    elif answerNumber == 7:
        return 'My reply is no'
    elif answerNumber == 8:
        return 'Outlook not so good'
    elif answerNumber == 9:
        return 'Very doubtful'

r = random.randint(1, 9)
fortune = getAnswer(r)
print(fortune)

The None Value

spam = print('Hello!')
spam is None

Note: never compare to None with the == operator. Always use is.

print Keyword Arguments

print('Hello', end='')
print('World')

print('cats', 'dogs', 'mice')

print('cats', 'dogs', 'mice', sep=',')

Local and Global Scope

• Code in the global scope cannot use any local variables.
• However, a local scope can access global variables.
• Code in a function’s local scope cannot use variables in any other local scope.
• You can use the same name for different variables if they are in different scopes. That is, there can be a local variable named spam and a global variable also named spam.

The global Statement

If you need to modify a global variable from within a function, use the global statement:

def spam():
    global eggs
    eggs = 'spam'

eggs = 'global'
spam()
print(eggs)

There are four rules to tell whether a variable is in a local scope or global scope:

1. If a variable is being used in the global scope (that is, outside of all functions), then it is always a global variable.
2. If there is a global statement for that variable in a function, it is a global variable.
3. Otherwise, if the variable is used in an assignment statement in the function, it is a local variable.
4. But if the variable is not used in an assignment statement, it is a global variable.

Exception Handling

Basic exception handling

def spam(divideBy):
    try:
        return 42 / divideBy
    except ZeroDivisionError as e:
        print('Error: Invalid argument: {}'.format(e))

print(spam(2))
print(spam(12))
print(spam(0))
print(spam(1))

Final code in exception handling

Code inside the finally section is always executed, no matter if an exception has been raised or not, and even if an exception is not caught.

def spam(divideBy):
    try:
        return 42 / divideBy
    except ZeroDivisionError as e:
        print('Error: Invalid argument: {}'.format(e))
    finally:
        print("-- division finished --")

print(spam(12))
print(spam(0))

Lists

['cat', 'bat', 'rat', 'elephant']

Getting Individual Values in a List with Indexes

spam = ['cat', 'bat', 'rat', 'elephant']
spam[0]

spam[1]

spam[2]

spam[3]

Negative Indexes

spam = ['cat', 'bat', 'rat', 'elephant']
spam[-1]

spam[-3]

'The {} is afraid of the {}.'.format(spam[-1], spam[-3])

Getting Sublists with Slices

spam = ['cat', 'bat', 'rat', 'elephant']
spam[0:4]

spam[1:3]

spam[0:-1]

spam = ['cat', 'bat', 'rat', 'elephant']
spam[:2]

spam[1:]

spam[:]

Getting a list Length with len

spam = ['cat', 'dog', 'moose']
len(spam)

Changing Values in a List with Indexes

spam = ['cat', 'bat', 'rat', 'elephant']
spam[1] = 'aardvark'
spam

spam[2] = spam[1]
spam

spam[-1] = 12345
spam

List Concatenation and List Replication

[1, 2, 3] + ['A', 'B', 'C']

['X', 'Y', 'Z'] * 3

spam = [1, 2, 3]
spam = spam + ['A', 'B', 'C']
spam

Removing Values from Lists with del Statements

spam = ['cat', 'bat', 'rat', 'elephant']
del spam[2]
spam

del spam[2]
spam

Using for Loops with Lists

supplies = ['pens', 'staplers', 'flame-throwers', 'binders']

for i, supply in enumerate(supplies):
    print('Index {} in supplies is: {}'.format(str(i), supply))

Looping Through Multiple Lists with zip

name = ['Pete', 'John', 'Elizabeth']
age = [6, 23, 44]

for n, a in zip(name, age):
    print('{} is {} years old'.format(n, a))

The in and not in Operators

'howdy' in ['hello', 'hi', 'howdy', 'heyas']

spam = ['hello', 'hi', 'howdy', 'heyas']
False

'howdy' not in spam

'cat' not in spam

The Multiple Assignment Trick

The multiple assignment trick is a shortcut that lets you assign multiple variables with the values in a list in one line of code. So instead of doing this:

cat = ['fat', 'orange', 'loud']
size = cat[0]
color = cat[1]
disposition = cat[2]

You could type this line of code:

cat = ['fat', 'orange', 'loud']
size, color, disposition = cat

The multiple assignment trick can also be used to swap the values in two variables:

a, b = 'Alice', 'Bob'
a, b = b, a
print(a)

print(b)

Augmented Assignment Operators

Examples:

spam = 'Hello'
spam += ' world!'
spam

bacon = ['Zophie']
bacon *= 3
bacon

Finding a Value in a List with the index Method

spam = ['Zophie', 'Pooka', 'Fat-tail', 'Pooka']
spam.index('Pooka')

Adding Values to Lists with append and insert

append():

spam = ['cat', 'dog', 'bat']
spam.append('moose')
spam

insert():

spam = ['cat', 'dog', 'bat']
spam.insert(1, 'chicken')
spam

Removing Values from Lists with remove

spam = ['cat', 'bat', 'rat', 'elephant']
spam.remove('bat')
spam

If the value appears multiple times in the list, only the first instance of the value will be removed.

Sorting the Values in a List with sort

spam = [2, 5, 3.14, 1, -7]
spam.sort()
spam

spam = ['ants', 'cats', 'dogs', 'badgers', 'elephants']
spam.sort()
spam

You can also pass True for the reverse keyword argument to have sort() sort the values in reverse order:

spam.sort(reverse=True)
spam

If you need to sort the values in regular alphabetical order, pass str. lower for the key keyword argument in the sort() method call:

spam = ['a', 'z', 'A', 'Z']
spam.sort(key=str.lower)
spam

You can use the built-in function sorted to return a new list:

spam = ['ants', 'cats', 'dogs', 'badgers', 'elephants']
sorted(spam)

Tuple Data Type

eggs = ('hello', 42, 0.5)
eggs[0]

eggs[1:3]

len(eggs)

The main way that tuples are different from lists is that tuples, like strings, are immutable.

Converting Types with the list and tuple Functions

tuple(['cat', 'dog', 5])

list(('cat', 'dog', 5))

list('hello')

Dictionaries and Structuring Data

Example Dictionary:

myCat = {'size': 'fat', 'color': 'gray', 'disposition': 'loud'}

The keys, values, and items Methods

values():

spam = {'color': 'red', 'age': 42}

for v in spam.values():
    print(v)

keys():

for k in spam.keys():
    print(k)

items():

for i in spam.items():
    print(i)

Using the keys(), values(), and items() methods, a for loop can iterate over the keys, values, or key-value pairs in a dictionary, respectively.

spam = {'color': 'red', 'age': 42}

for k, v in spam.items():
    print('Key: {} Value: {}'.format(k, str(v)))

Checking if a Key or Value Exists in a Dictionary

spam = {'name': 'Zophie', 'age': 7}
'name' in spam.keys()

'Zophie' in spam.values()

# You can omit the call to keys() when checking for a key
'color' in spam

'color' not in spam

'color' in spam

The get Method

picnic_items = {'apples': 5, 'cups': 2}
'I am bringing {} cups.'.format(str(picnic_items.get('cups', 0)))

'I am bringing {} eggs.'.format(str(picnic_items.get('eggs', 0)))

The setdefault Method

Let’s consider this code:

spam = {'name': 'Pooka', 'age': 5}
if 'color' not in spam:
    spam['color'] = 'black'

Using setdefault we could make the same code more shortly:

spam = {'name': 'Pooka', 'age': 5}
spam.setdefault('color', 'black')

spam

spam.setdefault('color', 'white')

spam

Pretty Printing

import pprint

message = 'It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.'
count = {}

for character in message:
    count.setdefault(character, 0)
    count[character] = count[character] + 1

pprint.pprint(count)

Merge two dictionaries

# in Python 3.5+:
x = {'a': 1, 'b': 2}
y = {'b': 3, 'c': 4}
z = {**x, **y}
z

sets

From the Python 3 documentation

A set is an unordered collection with no duplicate elements. Basic uses include membership testing and eliminating duplicate entries. Set objects also support mathematical operations like union, intersection, difference, and symmetric difference.

Initializing a set

There are two ways to create sets: using curly braces {} and the bult-in function set()

s = {1, 2, 3}
s = set([1, 2, 3])

When creating an empty set, be sure to not use the curly braces {} or you will get an empty dictionary instead.

s = {}
type(s)

sets: unordered collections of unique elements

A set automatically remove all the duplicate values.

s = {1, 2, 3, 2, 3, 4}
s

And as an unordered data type, they can’t be indexed.

s = {1, 2, 3}
s(0)

set add and update

Using the add() method we can add a single element to the set.

s = {1, 2, 3}
s.add(4)
s

And with update(), multiple ones .

s = {1, 2, 3}
s.update([2, 3, 4, 5, 6])
s  # remember, sets automatically remove duplicates

set remove and discard

Both methods will remove an element from the set, but remove() will raise a key error if the value doesn’t exist.

s = {1, 2, 3}
s.remove(3)
s

s.remove(3)

discard() won’t raise any errors.

s = {1, 2, 3}
s.discard(3)
s

s.discard(3)

set union

union() or | will create a new set that contains all the elements from the sets provided.

s1 = {1, 2, 3}
s2 = {3, 4, 5}
s1.union(s2)  # or 's1 | s2'

set intersection

intersection or & will return a set containing only the elements that are common to all of them.

s1 = {1, 2, 3}
s2 = {2, 3, 4}
s3 = {3, 4, 5}
s1.intersection(s2, s3)  # or 's1 & s2 & s3'

set difference

difference or - will return only the elements that are in one of the sets.

s1 = {1, 2, 3}
s2 = {2, 3, 4}
s1.difference(s2)  # or 's1 - s2'

set symetric_difference

symetric_difference or ^ will return all the elements that are not common between them.

s1 = {1, 2, 3}
s2 = {2, 3, 4}
s1.symmetric_difference(s2)  # or 's1 ^ s2'

itertools Module

The itertools module is a collection of tools intented to be fast and use memory efficiently when handling iterators (like lists or dictionaries).

From the official Python 3.x documentation:

The module standardizes a core set of fast, memory efficient tools that are useful by themselves or in combination. Together, they form an “iterator algebra” making it possible to construct specialized tools succinctly and efficiently in pure Python.

The itertools module comes in the standard library and must be imported.

The operator module will also be used. This module is not necessary when using itertools, but needed for some of the examples below.

import itertools
import operator

accumulate

Makes an iterator that returns the results of a function.

itertools.accumulate(iterable[, func])

Example:

data = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
result = itertools.accumulate(data, operator.mul)
for each in result:
   print(each)

The operator.mul takes two numbers and multiplies them:

operator.mul(1, 2)

operator.mul(2, 3)

operator.mul(6, 4)

operator.mul(24, 5)

Passing a function is optional:

data = [5, 2, 6, 4, 5, 9, 1]
result = itertools.accumulate(data)

for each in result:
   print(each)

If no function is designated the items will be summed:

5
5 + 2 = 7
7 + 6 = 13
13 + 4 = 17
17 + 5 = 22
22 + 9 = 31
31 + 1 = 32

combinations

Takes an iterable and a integer. This will create all the unique combination that have r members.

itertools.combinations(iterable, r)

Example:

shapes = ['circle', 'triangle', 'square',]
result = itertools.combinations(shapes, 2)

for each in result:
   print(each)

combinationswithreplacement

Just like combinations(), but allows individual elements to be repeated more than once.

itertools.combinations_with_replacement(iterable, r)

Example:

shapes = ['circle', 'triangle', 'square']
result = itertools.combinations_with_replacement(shapes, 2)

for each in result:
   print(each)

count

Makes an iterator that returns evenly spaced values starting with number start.

itertools.count(start=0, step=1)

Example:

for i in itertools.count(10,3):
   print(i)
   if i > 20:
       break

cycle

This function cycles through an iterator endlessly.

itertools.cycle(iterable)

Example:

colors = ['red', 'orange', 'yellow', 'green', 'blue', 'violet']
for color in itertools.cycle(colors):
   print(color)

When reached the end of the iterable it start over again from the beginning.

chain

Take a series of iterables and return them as one long iterable.

itertools.chain(*iterables)

Example:

colors = ['red', 'orange', 'yellow', 'green', 'blue']
shapes = ['circle', 'triangle', 'square', 'pentagon']
result = itertools.chain(colors, shapes)

for each in result:
   print(each)

compress

Filters one iterable with another.

itertools.compress(data, selectors)

Example:

shapes = ['circle', 'triangle', 'square', 'pentagon']
selections = [True, False, True, False]
result = itertools.compress(shapes, selections)

for each in result:
   print(each)

dropwhile

Make an iterator that drops elements from the iterable as long as the predicate is true; afterwards, returns every element.

itertools.dropwhile(predicate, iterable)

Example:

data = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 1]
result = itertools.dropwhile(lambda x: x<5, data)

for each in result:
   print(each)

filterfalse

Makes an iterator that filters elements from iterable returning only those for which the predicate is False.

itertools.filterfalse(predicate, iterable)

Example:

data = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
result = itertools.filterfalse(lambda x: x<5, data)

for each in result:
   print(each)

groupby

Simply put, this function groups things together.

itertools.groupby(iterable, key=None)

Example:

robots = [{
    'name': 'blaster',
    'faction': 'autobot'
}, {
    'name': 'galvatron',
    'faction': 'decepticon'
}, {
    'name': 'jazz',
    'faction': 'autobot'
}, {
    'name': 'metroplex',
    'faction': 'autobot'
}, {
    'name': 'megatron',
    'faction': 'decepticon'
}, {
    'name': 'starcream',
    'faction': 'decepticon'
}]

for key, group in itertools.groupby(robots, key=lambda x: x['faction']):
   print(key)
   print(list(group))

islice

This function is very much like slices. This allows you to cut out a piece of an iterable.

itertools.islice(iterable, start, stop[, step])

Example:

colors = ['red', 'orange', 'yellow', 'green', 'blue',]
few_colors = itertools.islice(colors, 2)

for each in few_colors:
   print(each)

permutations

itertools.permutations(iterable, r=None)

Example:

alpha_data = ['a', 'b', 'c']
result = itertools.permutations(alpha_data)

for each in result:
   print(each)

product

Creates the cartesian products from a series of iterables.

num_data = [1, 2, 3]
alpha_data = ['a', 'b', 'c']
result = itertools.product(num_data, alpha_data)

for each in result:
    print(each)

repeat

This function will repeat an object over and over again. Unless, there is a times argument.

itertools.repeat(object[, times])

Example:

for i in itertools.repeat("spam", 3):
    print(i)

starmap

Makes an iterator that computes the function using arguments obtained from the iterable.

itertools.starmap(function, iterable)

Example:

data = [(2, 6), (8, 4), (7, 3)]
result = itertools.starmap(operator.mul, data)

for each in result:
   print(each)

takewhile

The opposite of dropwhile(). Makes an iterator and returns elements from the iterable as long as the predicate is true.

itertools.takewhile(predicate, iterable)

Example:

data = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 1]
result = itertools.takewhile(lambda x: x<5, data)

for each in result:
   print(each)

tee

Return n independent iterators from a single iterable.

itertools.tee(iterable, n=2)

Example:

colors = ['red', 'orange', 'yellow', 'green', 'blue']
alpha_colors, beta_colors = itertools.tee(colors)

for each in alpha_colors:
   print(each)

colors = ['red', 'orange', 'yellow', 'green', 'blue']
alpha_colors, beta_colors = itertools.tee(colors)

for each in beta_colors:
   print(each)

zip_longest

Makes an iterator that aggregates elements from each of the iterables. If the iterables are of uneven length, missing values are filled-in with fillvalue. Iteration continues until the longest iterable is exhausted.

itertools.zip_longest(*iterables, fillvalue=None)

Example:

colors = ['red', 'orange', 'yellow', 'green', 'blue',]
data = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,]

for each in itertools.zip_longest(colors, data, fillvalue=None):
   print(each)

Comprehensions

List comprehension

a = [1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11]
[i - 1 for i in a]

Set comprehension

b = {"abc", "def"}
{s.upper() for s in b}

Dict comprehension

c = {'name': 'Pooka', 'age': 5}
{v, k for k, v in c.items()}

A List comprehension can be generated from a dictionary:

c = {'name': 'Pooka', 'first_name': 'Oooka'}
["{}:{}".format(k.upper(), v.upper()) for k, v in c.items()]

Manipulating Strings

Escape Characters

Example:

print("Hello there!\nHow are you?\nI\'m doing fine.")
Hello there!
How are you?

Raw Strings

A raw string completely ignores all escape characters and prints any backslash that appears in the string.

print(r'That is Carol\'s cat.')

Note: mostly used for regular expression definition (see re package)

Multiline Strings with Triple Quotes

print('''Dear Alice,

Eve's cat has been arrested for catnapping, cat burglary, and extortion.

Sincerely,
Bob''')

To keep a nicer flow in your code, you can use the dedent function from the textwrap standard package.

from textwrap import dedent

def my_function():
    print('''
        Dear Alice,

        Eve's cat has been arrested for catnapping, cat burglary, and extortion.

        Sincerely,
        Bob
        ''').strip()

This generates the same string than before.

Indexing and Slicing Strings

H   e   l   l   o       w   o   r   l   d    !
0   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11

spam = 'Hello world!'
spam[0]

spam[4]

spam[-1]

Slicing:

spam[0:5]

spam[:5]

spam[6:]

spam[6:-1]

spam[:-1]

spam[::-1]

spam = 'Hello world!'
fizz = spam[0:5]
fizz

The in and not in Operators with Strings

'Hello' in 'Hello World'

'Hello' in 'Hello'

'HELLO' in 'Hello World'

'' in 'spam'

'cats' not in 'cats and dogs'

The in and not in Operators with list

a = [1, 2, 3, 4]
5 in a

2 in a

The upper, lower, isupper, and islower String Methods

upper() and lower():

spam = 'Hello world!'
spam = spam.upper()
spam

spam = spam.lower()
spam

isupper() and islower():

spam = 'Hello world!'
spam.islower()

spam.isupper()

'HELLO'.isupper()

'abc12345'.islower()

'12345'.islower()

'12345'.isupper()

The isX String Methods

• isalpha() returns True if the string consists only of letters and is not blank.
• isalnum() returns True if the string consists only of lettersand numbers and is not blank.
• isdecimal() returns True if the string consists only ofnumeric characters and is not blank.
• isspace() returns True if the string consists only of spaces,tabs, and new-lines and is not blank.
• istitle() returns True if the string consists only of wordsthat begin with an uppercase letter followed by onlylowercase letters.

The startswith and endswith String Methods

'Hello world!'.startswith('Hello')

'Hello world!'.endswith('world!')

'abc123'.startswith('abcdef')

'abc123'.endswith('12')

'Hello world!'.startswith('Hello world!')

'Hello world!'.endswith('Hello world!')

The join and split String Methods

join():

', '.join(['cats', 'rats', 'bats'])

' '.join(['My', 'name', 'is', 'Simon'])

'ABC'.join(['My', 'name', 'is', 'Simon'])

split():

'My name is Simon'.split()

'MyABCnameABCisABCSimon'.split('ABC')

'My name is Simon'.split('m')

Justifying Text with rjust, ljust, and center

rjust() and ljust():

'Hello'.rjust(10)

'Hello'.rjust(20)

'Hello World'.rjust(20)

'Hello'.ljust(10)

An optional second argument to rjust() and ljust() will specify a fill character other than a space character. Enter the following into the interactive shell:

'Hello'.rjust(20, '*')

'Hello'.ljust(20, '-')

center():

'Hello'.center(20)

'Hello'.center(20, '=')

Removing Whitespace with strip, rstrip, and lstrip

spam = '    Hello World     '
spam.strip()

spam.lstrip()

spam.rstrip()

spam = 'SpamSpamBaconSpamEggsSpamSpam'
spam.strip('ampS')

Copying and Pasting Strings with the pyperclip Module

First, install pypeerclip with pip:

pip install pyperclip

import pyperclip

pyperclip.copy('Hello world!')
pyperclip.paste()

String Formatting

% operator

name = 'Pete'
'Hello %s' % name

We can use the %x format specifier to convert an int value to a string:

num = 5
'I have %x apples' % num

Note: For new code, using str.format or f-strings is strongly recommended over the % operator.

str.format

Python 3 introduced a new way to do string formatting that was later back-ported to Python 2.7. This makes the syntax for string formatting more regular.

name = 'John'
age = 20'

"Hello I'm {}, my age is {}".format(name, age)

"Hello I'm {0}, my age is {1}".format(name, age)

The official Python 3.x documentation recommend str.format over the % operator:

The formatting operations described here exhibit a variety of quirks that lead to a number of common errors (such as failing to display tuples and dictionaries correctly). Using the newer formatted string literals or the str.format() interface helps avoid these errors. These alternatives also provide more powerful, flexible and extensible approaches to formatting text.

Lazy string formatting

You would only use %s string formatting on functions that can do lazy parameters evaluation, the most common being logging:

Prefer:

name = "alice"
logging.debug("User name: %s", name)

Over:

logging.debug("User name: {}".format(name))

Or:

logging.debug("User name: " + name)

Formatted String Literals or f-strings

Python 3.6+

name = 'Elizabeth'
f'Hello {name}!'

It is even possible to do inline arithmetic with it:

a = 5
b = 10
f'Five plus ten is {a + b} and not {2 * (a + b)}.'

Template Strings

A simpler and less powerful mechanism, but it is recommended when handling format strings generated by users. Due to their reduced complexity template strings are a safer choice.

from string import Template

name = 'Elizabeth'
t = Template('Hey $name!')
t.substitute(name=name)

Regular Expressions

1. Import the regex module with import re.
2. Create a Regex object with the re.compile() function. (Remember to use a raw string.)
3. Pass the string you want to search into the Regex object’s search() method. This returns a Match object.
4. Call the Match object’s group() method to return a string of the actual matched text.

All the regex functions in Python are in the re module:

import re

Matching Regex Objects

phone_num_regex = re.compile(r'\d\d\d-\d\d\d-\d\d\d\d')
mo = phone_num_regex.search('My number is 415-555-4242.')
print('Phone number found: {}'.format(mo.group()))

Grouping with Parentheses

phone_num_regex = re.compile(r'(\d\d\d)-(\d\d\d-\d\d\d\d)')
mo = phone_num_regex.search('My number is 415-555-4242.')
mo.group(1)

mo.group(2)

mo.group(0)

mo.group()

To retrieve all the groups at once: use the groups() method—note the plural form for the name.

mo.groups()
area_code, main_number = mo.groups()

print(area_code)

print(main_number)

Matching Multiple Groups with the Pipe

The | character is called a pipe. You can use it anywhere you want to match one of many expressions. For example, the regular expression r’Batman|Tina Fey’ will match either ‘Batman’ or ‘Tina Fey’.

hero_regex = re.compile (r'Batman|Tina Fey')
mo1 = hero_regex.search('Batman and Tina Fey.')
mo1.group()

mo2 = hero_regex.search('Tina Fey and Batman.')
mo2.group()

You can also use the pipe to match one of several patterns as part of your regex:

bat_regex = re.compile(r'Bat(man|mobile|copter|bat)')
mo = bat_regex.search('Batmobile lost a wheel')
mo.group()

mo.group(1)

Optional Matching with the Question Mark

The ? character flags the group that precedes it as an optional part of the pattern.

bat_regex = re.compile(r'Bat(wo)?man')
mo1 = bat_regex.search('The Adventures of Batman')
mo1.group()

mo2 = bat_regex.search('The Adventures of Batwoman')
mo2.group()

Matching Zero or More with the Star

The * (called the star or asterisk) means “match zero or more”—the group that precedes the star can occur any number of times in the text.

bat_regex = re.compile(r'Bat(wo)*man')
mo1 = bat_regex.search('The Adventures of Batman')
mo1.group()

mo2 = bat_regex.search('The Adventures of Batwoman')
mo2.group()

mo3 = bat_regex.search('The Adventures of Batwowowowoman')
mo3.group()

Matching One or More with the Plus

While * means “match zero or more,” the + (or plus) means “match one or more”. The group preceding a plus must appear at least once. It is not optional:

bat_regex = re.compile(r'Bat(wo)+man')
mo1 = bat_regex.search('The Adventures of Batwoman')
mo1.group()

mo2 = bat_regex.search('The Adventures of Batwowowowoman')
mo2.group()

mo3 = bat_regex.search('The Adventures of Batman')
mo3 is None

Matching Specific Repetitions with Curly Brackets

If you have a group that you want to repeat a specific number of times, follow the group in your regex with a number in curly brackets. For example, the regex (Ha){3} will match the string ‘HaHaHa’, but it will not match ‘HaHa’, since the latter has only two repeats of the (Ha) group.

Instead of one number, you can specify a range by writing a minimum, a comma, and a maximum in between the curly brackets. For example, the regex (Ha){3,5} will match ‘HaHaHa’, ‘HaHaHaHa’, and ‘HaHaHaHaHa’.

ha_regex = re.compile(r'(Ha){3}')
mo1 = ha_regex.search('HaHaHa')
mo1.group()

mo2 = ha_regex.search('Ha')
mo2 is None

Greedy and Nongreedy Matching

Python’s regular expressions are greedy by default, which means that in ambiguous situations they will match the longest string possible. The non-greedy version of the curly brackets, which matches the shortest string possible, has the closing curly bracket followed by a question mark.

greedy_ha_regex = re.compile(r'(Ha){3,5}')
mo1 = greedy_ha_regex.search('HaHaHaHaHa')
mo1.group()

nongreedy_ha_regex = re.compile(r'(Ha){3,5}?')
mo2 = nongreedy_ha_regex.search('HaHaHaHaHa')
mo2.group()

The findall Method

In addition to the search() method, Regex objects also have a findall() method. While search() will return a Match object of the first matched text in the searched string, the findall() method will return the strings of every match in the searched string.

phone_num_regex = re.compile(r'\d\d\d-\d\d\d-\d\d\d\d') # has no groups
phone_num_regex.findall('Cell: 415-555-9999 Work: 212-555-0000')

To summarize what the findall() method returns, remember the following:

• When called on a regex with no groups, such as \d-\d\d\d-\d\d\d\d, the method findall() returns a list of ng matches, such as [‘415-555-9999’, ‘212-555-0000’].
• When called on a regex that has groups, such as (\d\d\d)-d\d)-(\d\ d\d\d), the method findall() returns a list of es of strings (one string for each group), such as [(‘415’, ’, ‘9999’), (‘212’, ‘555’, ‘0000’)].

Making Your Own Character Classes

There are times when you want to match a set of characters but the shorthand character classes (\d, \w, \s, and so on) are too broad. You can define your own character class using square brackets. For example, the character class [aeiouAEIOU] will match any vowel, both lowercase and uppercase.

vowel_regex = re.compile(r'[aeiouAEIOU]')
vowel_regex.findall('Robocop eats baby food. BABY FOOD.')

You can also include ranges of letters or numbers by using a hyphen. For example, the character class [a-zA-Z0-9] will match all lowercase letters, uppercase letters, and numbers.

By placing a caret character (^) just after the character class’s opening bracket, you can make a negative character class. A negative character class will match all the characters that are not in the character class. For example, enter the following into the interactive shell:

consonant_regex = re.compile(r'[^aeiouAEIOU]')
consonant_regex.findall('Robocop eats baby food. BABY FOOD.')

The Caret and Dollar Sign Characters

• You can also use the caret symbol (^) at the start of a regex to indicate that a match must occur at the beginning of the searched text.
• Likewise, you can put a dollar sign ($) at the end of the regex to indicate the string must end with this regex pattern.
• And you can use the ^ and $ together to indicate that the entire string must match the regex—that is, it’s not enough for a match to be made on some subset of the string.

The r’^Hello’ regular expression string matches strings that begin with ‘Hello’:

begins_with_hello = re.compile(r'^Hello')
begins_with_hello.search('Hello world!')

begins_with_hello.search('He said hello.') is None

The r’\d$’ regular expression string matches strings that end with a numeric character from 0 to 9:

whole_string_is_num = re.compile(r'^\d+$')
whole_string_is_num.search('1234567890')

whole_string_is_num.search('12345xyz67890') is None

whole_string_is_num.search('12 34567890') is None

The Wildcard Character

The . (or dot) character in a regular expression is called a wildcard and will match any character except for a newline:

at_regex = re.compile(r'.at')
at_regex.findall('The cat in the hat sat on the flat mat.')

Matching Everything with Dot-Star

name_regex = re.compile(r'First Name: (.*) Last Name: (.*)')
mo = name_regex.search('First Name: Some Last Name: One')
mo.group(1)

mo.group(2)

The dot-star uses greedy mode: It will always try to match as much text as possible. To match any and all text in a nongreedy fashion, use the dot, star, and question mark (.*?). The question mark tells Python to match in a nongreedy way:

nongreedy_regex = re.compile(r'<.*?>')
mo = nongreedy_regex.search('<To serve man> for dinner.>')
mo.group()

greedy_regex = re.compile(r'<.*>')
mo = greedy_regex.search('<To serve man> for dinner.>')
mo.group()

Matching Newlines with the Dot Character

The dot-star will match everything except a newline. By passing re.DOTALL as the second argument to re.compile(), you can make the dot character match all characters, including the newline character:

no_newline_regex = re.compile('.*')
no_newline_regex.search('Serve the public trust.\nProtect the innocent.\nUphold the law.').group()

newline_regex = re.compile('.*', re.DOTALL)
newline_regex.search('Serve the public trust.\nProtect the innocent.\nUphold the law.').group()

Review of Regex Symbols

Case-Insensitive Matching

To make your regex case-insensitive, you can pass re.IGNORECASE or re.I as a second argument to re.compile():

robocop = re.compile(r'robocop', re.I)
robocop.search('Robocop is part man, part machine, all cop.').group()

robocop.search('ROBOCOP protects the innocent.').group()

robocop.search('Al, why does your programming book talk about robocop so much?').group()

Substituting Strings with the sub() Method

The sub() method for Regex objects is passed two arguments:

1. The first argument is a string to replace any matches.
2. The second is the string for the regular expression.

The sub() method returns a string with the substitutions applied:

names_regex = re.compile(r'Agent \w+')
names_regex.sub('CENSORED', 'Agent Alice gave the secret documents to Agent Bob.')

Another example:

agent_names_regex = re.compile(r'Agent (\w)\w*')
agent_names_regex.sub(r'\1****', 'Agent Alice told Agent Carol that Agent Eve knew Agent Bob was a double agent.')

Managing Complex Regexes

To tell the re.compile() function to ignore whitespace and comments inside the regular expression string, “verbose mode” can be enabled by passing the variable re.VERBOSE as the second argument to re.compile().

Now instead of a hard-to-read regular expression like this:

phone_regex = re.compile(r'((\d{3}|\(\d{3}\))?(\s|-|\.)?\d{3}(\s|-|\.)\d{4}(\s*(ext|x|ext.)\s*\d{2,5})?)')

you can spread the regular expression over multiple lines with comments like this:

phone_regex = re.compile(r'''(
    (\d{3}|\(\d{3}\))?            # area code
    (\s|-|\.)?                    # separator
    \d{3}                         # first 3 digits
    (\s|-|\.)                     # separator
    \d{4}                         # last 4 digits
    (\s*(ext|x|ext.)\s*\d{2,5})?  # extension
    )''', re.VERBOSE)

Handling File and Directory Paths

There are two main modules in Python that deals with path manipulation. One is the os.path module and the other is the pathlib module. The pathlib module was added in Python 3.4, offering an object-oriented way to handle file system paths.

Backslash on Windows and Forward Slash on OS X and Linux

On Windows, paths are written using backslashes () as the separator between folder names. On Unix based operating system such as macOS, Linux, and BSDs, the forward slash (/) is used as the path separator. Joining paths can be a headache if your code needs to work on different platforms.

Fortunately, Python provides easy ways to handle this. We will showcase how to deal with this with both os.path.join and pathlib.Path.joinpath

Using os.path.join on Windows:

import os

os.path.join('usr', 'bin', 'spam')

And using pathlib on *nix:

from pathlib import Path

print(Path('usr').joinpath('bin').joinpath('spam'))

pathlib also provides a shortcut to joinpath using the / operator:

from pathlib import Path

print(Path('usr') / 'bin' / 'spam')

Notice the path separator is different between Windows and Unix based operating system, that’s why you want to use one of the above methods instead of adding strings together to join paths together.

Joining paths is helpful if you need to create different file paths under the same directory.

Using os.path.join on Windows:

my_files = ['accounts.txt', 'details.csv', 'invite.docx']

for filename in my_files:
    print(os.path.join('C:\\Users\\asweigart', filename))

Using pathlib on *nix:

my_files = ['accounts.txt', 'details.csv', 'invite.docx']
home = Path.home()
for filename in my_files:
    print(home / filename)

The Current Working Directory

Using os on Windows:

import os

os.getcwd()

os.chdir('C:\\Windows\\System32')
os.getcwd()

Using pathlib on *nix:

from pathlib import Path
from os import chdir

print(Path.cwd())

chdir('/usr/lib/python3.6')
print(Path.cwd())

Creating New Folders

Using os on Windows:

import os

os.makedirs('C:\\delicious\\walnut\\waffles')

Using pathlib on *nix:

from pathlib import Path
cwd = Path.cwd()
(cwd / 'delicious' / 'walnut' / 'waffles').mkdir()

Oh no, we got a nasty error! The reason is that the ‘delicious’ directory does not exist, so we cannot make the ‘walnut’ and the ‘waffles’ directories under it. To fix this, do:

from pathlib import Path
cwd = Path.cwd()
(cwd / 'delicious' / 'walnut' / 'waffles').mkdir(parents=True)

And all is good :)

Absolute vs. Relative Paths

There are two ways to specify a file path.

• An absolute path, which always begins with the root folder
• A relative path, which is relative to the program’s current working directory

There are also the dot (.) and dot-dot (..) folders. These are not real folders but special names that can be used in a path. A single period (“dot”) for a folder name is shorthand for “this directory.” Two periods (“dot-dot”) means “the parent folder.”

Handling Absolute and Relative Paths

To see if a path is an absolute path:

Using os.path on *nix:

import os

os.path.isabs('/')

os.path.isabs('..')

Using pathlib on *nix:

from pathlib import Path
Path('/').is_absolute()

Path('..').is_absolute()

You can extract an absolute path with both os.path and pathlib

Using os.path on *nix:

import os

os.getcwd()

os.path.abspath('..')

Using pathlib on *nix:

from pathlib import Path

print(Path.cwd())

print(Path('..').resolve())

You can get a relative path from a starting path to another path.

Using os.path on *nix:

import os

os.path.relpath('/etc/passwd', '/')

Using pathlib on *nix:

from pathlib import Path

print(Path('/etc/passwd').relative_to('/'))

Checking Path Validity

Checking if a file/directory exists:

Using os.path on *nix:

import os
os.path.exists('.')

os.path.exists('setup.py')

os.path.exists('/etc')

os.path.exists('nonexistentfile')

Using pathlib on *nix:

from pathlib import Path
Path('.').exists()

Path('setup.py').exists()

Path('/etc').exists()

Path('nonexistentfile').exists()

Checking if a path is a file:

Using os.path on *nix:

import os
os.path.isfile('setup.py')

os.path.isfile('/home')

os.path.isfile('nonexistentfile')

Using pathlib on *nix:

from pathlib import Path

Path('setup.py').is_file()

Path('/home').is_file()

Path('nonexistentfile').is_file()

Checking if a path is a directory:

Using os.path on *nix:

import os
os.path.isdir('/')

os.path.isdir('setup.py')

os.path.isdir('/spam')

Using pathlib on *nix:

from pathlib import Path

Path('/').is_dir()

Path('setup.py').is_dir()

Path('/spam').is_dir()

Finding File Sizes and Folder Contents

Getting a file’s size in bytes:

Using os.path on Windows:

import os
os.path.getsize('C:\\Windows\\System32\\calc.exe')

Using pathlib on *nix:

from pathlib import Path

stat = Path('/bin/python3.6').stat()
print(stat) # stat contains some other information about the file as well

print(stat.st_size) # size in bytes

Listing directory contents using os.listdir on Windows:

import os
os.listdir('C:\\Windows\\System32')

Listing directory contents using pathlib on *nix:

from pathlib import Path

for f in Path('/usr/bin').iterdir():
    print(f)

To find the total size of all the files in this directory:

WARNING: Directories themselves also have a size! So you might want to check for whether a path is a file or directory using the methods in the methods discussed in the above section!

Using os.path.getsize() and os.listdir() together on Windows:

import os

total_size = 0

for filename in os.listdir('C:\\Windows\\System32'):
      total_size = total_size + os.path.getsize(os.path.join('C:\\Windows\\System32', filename))

print(total_size)

Using pathlib on *nix:

from pathlib import Path
total_size = 0

for sub_path in Path('/usr/bin').iterdir():
    total_size += sub_path.stat().st_size

print(total_size)

Copying Files and Folders

The shutil module provides functions for copying files, as well as entire folders.

import shutil, os

os.chdir('C:\\')

shutil.copy('C:\\spam.txt', 'C:\\delicious')

shutil.copy('eggs.txt', 'C:\\delicious\\eggs2.txt')
   'C:\\delicious\\eggs2.txt'

While shutil.copy() will copy a single file, shutil.copytree() will copy an entire folder and every folder and file contained in it:

import shutil, os

os.chdir('C:\\')
shutil.copytree('C:\\bacon', 'C:\\bacon_backup')

Moving and Renaming Files and Folders

import shutil

shutil.move('C:\\bacon.txt', 'C:\\eggs')

The destination path can also specify a filename. In the following example, the source file is moved and renamed:

shutil.move('C:\\bacon.txt', 'C:\\eggs\\new_bacon.txt')

If there is no eggs folder, then move() will rename bacon.txt to a file named eggs.

shutil.move('C:\\bacon.txt', 'C:\\eggs')

Permanently Deleting Files and Folders

• Calling os.unlink(path) or Path.unlink() will delete the file at path.
• Calling os.rmdir(path) or Path.rmdir() will delete the folder at path. This folder must be empty of any files or folders.
• Calling shutil.rmtree(path) will remove the folder at path, and all files and folders it contains will also be deleted.

Safe Deletes with the send2trash Module

You can install this module by running pip install send2trash from a Terminal window.

import send2trash

with open('bacon.txt', 'a') as bacon_file: # creates the file
    bacon_file.write('Bacon is not a vegetable.')

send2trash.send2trash('bacon.txt')

Walking a Directory Tree

import os

for folder_name, subfolders, filenames in os.walk('C:\\delicious'):
    print('The current folder is {}'.format(folder_name))

    for subfolder in subfolders:
        print('SUBFOLDER OF {}: {}'.format(folder_name, subfolder))
    for filename in filenames:
        print('FILE INSIDE {}: {}'.format(folder_name, filename))

    print('')

pathlib provides a lot more functionality than the ones listed above, like getting file name, getting file extension, reading/writing a file without manually opening it, etc. Check out the official documentation if you want to know more!

Reading and Writing Files

The File Reading/Writing Process

To read/write to a file in Python, you will want to use the with statement, which will close the file for you after you are done.

Opening and reading files with the open function

with open('C:\\Users\\your_home_folder\\hello.txt') as hello_file:
    hello_content = hello_file.read()

hello_content

Alternatively, you can use the readlines() method to get a list of string values from the file, one string for each line of text:

with open('sonnet29.txt') as sonnet_file:
    sonnet_file.readlines()

You can also iterate through the file line by line:

with open('sonnet29.txt') as sonnet_file:
    for line in sonnet_file: # note the new line character will be included in the line
        print(line, end='')

Writing to Files

with open('bacon.txt', 'w') as bacon_file:
    bacon_file.write('Hello world!\n')

with open('bacon.txt', 'a') as bacon_file:
    bacon_file.write('Bacon is not a vegetable.')

with open('bacon.txt') as bacon_file:
    content = bacon_file.read()

print(content)

Saving Variables with the shelve Module

To save variables:

import shelve

cats = ['Zophie', 'Pooka', 'Simon']
with shelve.open('mydata') as shelf_file:
    shelf_file['cats'] = cats

To open and read variables:

with shelve.open('mydata') as shelf_file:
    print(type(shelf_file))
    print(shelf_file['cats'])

Just like dictionaries, shelf values have keys() and values() methods that will return list-like values of the keys and values in the shelf. Since these methods return list-like values instead of true lists, you should pass them to the list() function to get them in list form.

with shelve.open('mydata') as shelf_file:
    print(list(shelf_file.keys()))
    print(list(shelf_file.values()))

Saving Variables with pprint.pformat

import pprint

cats = [{'name': 'Zophie', 'desc': 'chubby'}, {'name': 'Pooka', 'desc': 'fluffy'}]
pprint.pformat(cats)

with open('myCats.py', 'w') as file_obj:
    file_obj.write('cats = {}\n'.format(pprint.pformat(cats)))

Reading ZIP Files

import zipfile, os

os.chdir('C:\\')    # move to the folder with example.zip
with zipfile.ZipFile('example.zip') as example_zip:
    print(example_zip.namelist())
    spam_info = example_zip.getinfo('spam.txt')
    print(spam_info.file_size)
    print(spam_info.compress_size)
    print('Compressed file is %sx smaller!' % (round(spam_info.file_size / spam_info.compress_size, 2)))

Extracting from ZIP Files

The extractall() method for ZipFile objects extracts all the files and folders from a ZIP file into the current working directory.

import zipfile, os

os.chdir('C:\\')    # move to the folder with example.zip

with zipfile.ZipFile('example.zip') as example_zip:
    example_zip.extractall()

The extract() method for ZipFile objects will extract a single file from the ZIP file. Continue the interactive shell example:

with zipfile.ZipFile('example.zip') as example_zip:
    print(example_zip.extract('spam.txt'))
    print(example_zip.extract('spam.txt', 'C:\\some\\new\\folders'))

Creating and Adding to ZIP Files

import zipfile

with zipfile.ZipFile('new.zip', 'w') as new_zip:
    new_zip.write('spam.txt', compress_type=zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)

This code will create a new ZIP file named new.zip that has the compressed contents of spam.txt.

JSON, YAML and configuration files

JSON

Open a JSON file with:

import json
with open("filename.json", "r") as f:
    content = json.loads(f.read())

Write a JSON file with:

import json

content = {"name": "Joe", "age": 20}
with open("filename.json", "w") as f:
    f.write(json.dumps(content, indent=2))

YAML

Compared to JSON, YAML allows a much better humain maintainance and gives ability to add comments. It is a convinient choice for configuration files where human will have to edit.

There are two main librairies allowing to access to YAML files:

• PyYaml
• Ruamel.yaml

Install them using pip install in your virtual environment.

The first one it easier to use but the second one, Ruamel, implements much better the YAML specification, and allow for example to modify a YAML content without altering comments.

Open a YAML file with:

from ruamel.yaml import YAML

with open("filename.yaml") as f:
    yaml=YAML()
    yaml.load(f)

Anyconfig

Anyconfig is a very handy package allowing to abstract completly the underlying configuration file format. It allows to load a Python dictionary from JSON, YAML, TOML, and so on.

Install it with:

pip install anyconfig

Usage:

import anyconfig

conf1 = anyconfig.load("/path/to/foo/conf.d/a.yml")

Debugging

Raising Exceptions

Exceptions are raised with a raise statement. In code, a raise statement consists of the following:

• The raise keyword
• A call to the Exception() function
• A string with a helpful error message passed to the Exception() function

raise Exception('This is the error message.')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#191>", line 1, in <module>
    raise Exception('This is the error message.')
Exception: This is the error message.

Often it’s the code that calls the function, not the function itself, that knows how to handle an expection. So you will commonly see a raise statement inside a function and the try and except statements in the code calling the function.

def box_print(symbol, width, height):
    if len(symbol) != 1:
      raise Exception('Symbol must be a single character string.')
    if width <= 2:
      raise Exception('Width must be greater than 2.')
    if height <= 2:
      raise Exception('Height must be greater than 2.')
    print(symbol * width)
    for i in range(height - 2):
        print(symbol + (' ' * (width - 2)) + symbol)
    print(symbol * width)
for sym, w, h in (('*', 4, 4), ('O', 20, 5), ('x', 1, 3), ('ZZ', 3, 3)):
    try:
        box_print(sym, w, h)
    except Exception as err:
        print('An exception happened: ' + str(err))

Getting the Traceback as a String

The traceback is displayed by Python whenever a raised exception goes unhandled. But can also obtain it as a string by calling traceback.format_exc(). This function is useful if you want the information from an exception’s traceback but also want an except statement to gracefully handle the exception. You will need to import Python’s traceback module before calling this function.

import traceback

try:
     raise Exception('This is the error message.')
except:
     with open('errorInfo.txt', 'w') as error_file:
         error_file.write(traceback.format_exc())
     print('The traceback info was written to errorInfo.txt.')

The 116 is the return value from the write() method, since 116 characters were written to the file. The traceback text was written to errorInfo.txt.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#28>", line 2, in <module>
Exception: This is the error message.

Assertions

An assertion is a sanity check to make sure your code isn’t doing something obviously wrong. These sanity checks are performed by assert statements. If the sanity check fails, then an AssertionError exception is raised. In code, an assert statement consists of the following:

• The assert keyword
• A condition (that is, an expression that evaluates to True or False)
• A comma
• A string to display when the condition is False

pod_bay_door_status = 'open'

assert pod_bay_door_status == 'open', 'The pod bay doors need to be "open".'

pod_bay_door_status = 'I\'m sorry, Dave. I\'m afraid I can\'t do that.'

assert pod_bay_door_status == 'open', 'The pod bay doors need to be "open".'

In plain English, an assert statement says, “I assert that this condition holds true, and if not, there is a bug somewhere in the program.” Unlike exceptions, your code should not handle assert statements with try and except; if an assert fails, your program should crash. By failing fast like this, you shorten the time between the original cause of the bug and when you first notice the bug. This will reduce the amount of code you will have to check before finding the code that’s causing the bug.

Disabling Assertions

Assertions can be disabled by passing the -O option when running Python.

Logging

To enable the logging module to display log messages on your screen as your program runs, copy the following to the top of your program (but under the #! python shebang line):

import logging

logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG, format=' %(asctime)s - %(levelname)s- %(message)s')

Say you wrote a function to calculate the factorial of a number. In mathematics, factorial 4 is 1 × 2 × 3 × 4, or 24. Factorial 7 is 1 × 2 × 3 × 4 × 5 × 6 × 7, or 5,040. Open a new file editor window and enter the following code. It has a bug in it, but you will also enter several log messages to help yourself figure out what is going wrong. Save the program as factorialLog.py.

import logging

logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG, format=' %(asctime)s - %(levelname)s- %(message)s')

logging.debug('Start of program')

def factorial(n):

    logging.debug('Start of factorial(%s)' % (n))
    total = 1

    for i in range(1, n + 1):
        total *= i
        logging.debug('i is ' + str(i) + ', total is ' + str(total))

    logging.debug('End of factorial(%s)' % (n))

    return total

print(factorial(5))
logging.debug('End of program')