7 Tricks for Writing Better Python Code
Writing working code is not always enough; you should try to write well-structured code that’s easy to understand too. Clean code will make it easy for you—and others—to maintain your software.
Python has many features and functions that can help you write cleaner code. Here are some of the best.
1. Automate Resource Closing With Context Manager
Manually closing resources can be inconvenient when your code is interacting with a lot of resources. You might forget to close a resource. This makes your program use system resources inefficiently which can lead to amemory leak.
This code opens a file, then closes it manually:
it’s possible to automate the closing of the file using a context manager. Context managers handle resources for you, so you don’t have to remember to manage them manually. Use thewithstatement to create a context to manage a resource:
The code in this block runs within the context of the file object thatopenreturns. Python automatically closes that file when the code leaves that context, even if an exception occurs.
2. Writing Cleaner Conditional Statements
You might find yourself writing a lot of unnecessary code when dealing withif-else statements. Python has ternary operators that will help you write more compact statements. The code block below shows a normal if-else statement.
You can rewrite this code using a ternary operator that lets you write the condition in a single line of code.
It’s important to note that you should use ternary operators when implementing simple logic. In more complex logic and nested conditional statements, the ternary operator can become hard to understand.
3. Keeping Track of Items With the Enumerate Function
When iterating over a Python list, you can access the index of the current item in two ways. One way is using the traditional for loop. This works fine, but the code is not as clean as it could be. It also requires you to initialize the index manually.
The other way is using the Python built-in enumerate function. This will allow you to access the index and the corresponding value in the list during looping.
You now don’t have to keep track of the index manually.
4. Looping Over Several Lists With the Zip Function
You can also use the enumerate function to loop over several lists at once. Get the index of the first list, then use it to access the corresponding values in other lists.
This works fine, but you’ll have to write a lot of unnecessary code if the number of lists increases. To write cleaner code you can use the zip function and pass the names of your list to it.
You should keep using the enumerate function toloop over a single list. But if you’re looping over several lists together, consider using the zip function.
5. Hiding Sensitive User Input With GetPass
When inputting sensitive information, the input should not be visible as plain text on the screen. The usual way of taking input in Python is to use the input function:
However, the input function makes the password visible as plain text on the screen during typing. To ensure the password is not displayed on the screen, you should use the getpass function instead:
The getpass module is part of Python’s standard library, so you do not need to install it.
6. Making Large Numbers Readable Using Underscore Placeholders
When you’re dealing with large numbers in your program, they can be very hard to read at a glance. Assigning incorrect numbers to variables leads to a faulty program and spotting this error can be very hard.
You can rewrite the above code using underscores to separate groups of thousands, a common way of making large numbers more readable.
The f string in the print function separates the output using the thousands separator.
7. Using the Help Function to Learn More About a Module
The help function is very important in Python. It will let you know how to use a module you have installed. To use it, install the module, then launch the Python interpreter in a terminal and point to the path you have installed the module. Import the module and finally pass the name of the module to the help function.
To discover which methods and attributes you can use, replace the help function with the dir function.
The dir function returns the methods and attributes the module supports not the whole documentation. This is useful when you want to have a glimpse of what the module does.
Writing Cleaner Python Code
Python is a very diverse language. As with any other language, you will become better at writing cleaner Python code over time.
Python has many built-in modules and functions. In some cases, you could write hard-to-read code because you lack knowledge of the existence of a certain function. To verify you are more informed, you should read more articles on how to write better code.
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