Reference library

Python Code Samples

Copy-ready Python snippets by topic and difficulty — short, focused, and runnable in the browser editor.

61 matches
Dictionaries & sets easy

How to Transform a List of Dictionaries with Sets in Python

Normalize a list of dict records — cleaning names, extracting unique tags with sets, and building a standardized result.

dictionaries sets data-normalization
Python
def transform_data(raw_records):
    """Transform a list of dict records into normalized data with sets for unique values."""
    normalized = []
    unique_names = set()
    all_tags = set()
    
    for record in raw_records:
        # Normalize name to lowercase and strip whitespace
        name = record.get("name"…
13 0 Open
Algorithms & data structures easy

Extract n largest elements from a large list using heapq

Uses heapq.nlargest to efficiently extract the top n largest numbers from a large list, even with millions of elements.

heapq heaps large-data
Python
import heapq
import random

def n_largest(numbers, n):
    """Return the n largest numbers from a list using heapq."""
    if n <= 0:
        return []
    return heapq.nlargest(n, numbers)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    # Create a large list with 1,000,000 random numbers
    large_list = [random.randint(1, 1_000_000…
14 0 Open
Algorithms & data structures medium

How to Find the n Smallest Items in a Large List with heapq in Python

This code demonstrates how to efficiently extract the n smallest items from a large list using Python's heapq module and a manual max-heap approach.

heapq heaps large data
Python
import heapq

def n_smallest_iterable(data, n):
    """Return the n smallest items without loading the whole list."""
    if n <= 0:
        return []
    return heapq.nsmallest(n, data)

def n_smallest_manual(data, n):
    """Return the n smallest using a heap, O(n log k) time."""
    if n <= 0:
        return []
   …
13 0 Open
Comprehensions & generators easy

Convert Data in Python with Comprehensions and Generators

Convert mixed data to integers, filter and transform numbers, and extract fields from dicts using list comprehensions and generator expressions.

comprehensions generators list-comprehension
Python
def convert_numbers(data):
    """Convert a list of mixed values into integers using a comprehension."""
    return [int(item) for item in data if item is not None]


def double_even_numbers(numbers):
    """Double only even numbers using a generator expression."""
    return (n * 2 for n in numbers if n % 2 == 0)


d…
15 0 Open
Comprehensions & generators easy

How to Create an Infinite Arithmetic Sequence Generator in Python

Build a memory-efficient generator that yields an infinite arithmetic progression and extract the first N values with list comprehension.

generators yield infinite-sequences
Python
"""Count generator infinite arithmetic progression"""


def arithmetic_counter(start=0, step=1):
    """Generate an infinite arithmetic sequence."""
    current = start
    while True:
        yield current
        current += step


if __name__ == "__main__":
    counter = arithmetic_counter(1, 3)
    result = [next(c…
14 0 Open
Comprehensions & generators easy

How to Sort Data with Comprehensions and Generators in Python

Sort a list of tuples by a key, then use a list comprehension to extract names and a generator to square high ranks.

sorting list-comprehension generator
Python
data = [("Anna", 3), ("Ben", 1), ("Clara", 2), ("Dan", 5), ("Eve", 4)]

# Comprehension: list of tuples (name, rank) sorted ascending by rank
sorted_by_rank = sorted(data, key=lambda x: x[1])

# Comprehension: extract just the names in rank order
names_in_rank_order = [name for name, rank in sorted_by_rank]

# Generat…
13 0 Open
Comprehensions & generators easy

Set Comprehension for Unique Word Lengths in Python

Use a set comprehension to extract unique word lengths from a string, then sort and print the result.

set comprehension unique word lengths
Python
text = "hello world hello python programming"

word_lengths = {len(word) for word in text.split()}

print("Unique word lengths:", word_lengths)
print("Sorted:", sorted(word_lengths))
10 0 Open
AI & LLM integration patterns easy

How to Parse JSON from LLM Model Output Fence in Python

Extract and parse a JSON object from a language model's output that may be wrapped in triple-backtick fences with an optional language tag.

json llm parsing
Python
import json
import re

def parse_json_from_fence(text):
    """
    Extract JSON object from a model output that may be wrapped in
    triple-backtick fences with optional language tag.
    """
    # Match content inside
12 0 Open
AI & LLM integration patterns easy

JSON Mode Prompt Schema Output in Python

Extract a user object to JSON with explicit schema keys, ready for LLM JSON-mode prompts.

json schema llm
Python
import json
from typing import Any, Dict


def extract_user_as_json(user: Dict[str, Any]) -> str:
    """Extract a user object and return it as JSON using explicit schema keys."""
    schema_fields = ("id", "name", "email", "is_active")
    user_subset = {key: user[key] for key in schema_fields if key in user}
    ret…
13 0 Open
Automation & scripting medium

Automatically Generate Charts from CSV Files with One Command

Read a CSV file with headers, extract the first two numeric columns, and save a matplotlib line chart as a PNG image.

csv matplotlib charting
Python
import csv
import sys
from pathlib import Path
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

def generate_chart(csv_path: str) -> None:
    """Read a CSV file with headers and plot the first two numeric columns."""
    data = []
    with open(csv_path, 'r', newline='') as f:
        reader = csv.reader(f)
        headers = next(re…
65 0 Open
Automation & scripting medium

Build an RSS feed from markdown blog posts in Python

Scans a folder of markdown files, extracts titles, dates, and excerpts, and generates a valid RSS 2.0 XML feed.

rss markdown xml
Python
import re
from pathlib import Path
from xml.etree.ElementTree import Element, SubElement, tostring
from datetime import datetime, timezone
from xml.dom import minidom

def build_rss(blog_dir, site_url="https://example.com"):
    feed = Element("rss", version="2.0")
    channel = SubElement(feed, "channel")
    SubElem…
12 0 Open
Automation & scripting medium

Convert DOCX to Text by Unzipping XML in Python

Extract plain text from a .docx file by unzipping the container and parsing word/document.xml with regex, using only Python's standard library.

docx zipfile xml
Python
import zipfile
import re
from pathlib import Path

def docx_to_text_unzip_xml(docx_path: str) -> str:
    """Extract plain text from a .docx file by unzipping and parsing document.xml."""
    docx_path = Path(docx_path)
    if not docx_path.exists():
        raise FileNotFoundError(f"File not found: {docx_path}")

   …
12 0 Open
Automation & scripting medium

Extract All Links from Any Website in Python

Scrape a webpage and extract all absolute HTTP/HTTPS links using requests and regex.

web-scraping links requests
Python
import requests
import re
from urllib.parse import urljoin

def extract_links(url):
    try:
        response = requests.get(url)
        response.raise_for_status()
        html = response.text
        # Find all href attributes in anchor tags
        pattern = r'href=["\'](.*?)["\']'
        raw_links = re.findall(p…
44 0 Open
Automation & scripting medium

Extract Attachments from mbox Mailbox Files in Python

Extract file attachments from an mbox mailbox format using Python's standard library email and mailbox modules.

mbox email attachments
Python
import email
import mailbox
from email.policy import default
from pathlib import Path

def extract_attachments(mbox_path, output_dir):
    output_dir = Path(output_dir)
    output_dir.mkdir(exist_ok=True)
    mbox = mailbox.mbox(mbox_path)
    
    for msg in mbox:
        if msg.is_multipart():
            for part i…
13 0 Open
Automation & scripting medium

Extract Every Open Graph and Social Media Meta Tag from Web Pages in Python

A Python script that fetches a webpage and extracts all Open Graph, Twitter Card, Facebook, and Article meta tags using the standard library HTML parser.

meta tags open graph twitter cards
Python
from html.parser import HTMLParser
import re
from urllib.request import urlopen
from urllib.parse import urlparse

class MetaExtractor(HTMLParser):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()
        self.meta_tags = []
    
    def handle_starttag(self, tag, attrs):
        if tag == 'meta':
            attrs_…
34 0 Open
Automation & scripting medium

How to Check SSL Certificate Expiry in Python

Connect to a host over TLS, extract the certificate's expiry date, and report days remaining using only the Python standard library.

ssl certificate socket
Python
import socket
import ssl
from datetime import datetime

def check_cert_expiry(hostname, port=443):
    context = ssl.create_default_context()
    with socket.create_connection((hostname, port), timeout=10) as sock:
        with context.wrap_socket(sock, server_hostname=hostname) as tls_sock:
            cert = tls_soc…
16 0 Open
Automation & scripting medium

How to Run Tesseract OCR from Python with subprocess

This script uses Python's subprocess module to invoke the Tesseract OCR engine from the command line and return the extracted text.

subprocess ocr tesseract
Python
import subprocess

def ocr_image(image_path):
    command = ["tesseract", image_path, "stdout"]
    result = subprocess.run(command, capture_output=True, text=True)
    return result.stdout.strip()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    # Stub: call the actual tesseract (must be installed)
    text = ocr_image("sample.png")
…
13 0 Open
Automation & scripting easy

How to rename music files by ID3 tags in Python

Renames MP3 files in a folder using artist and title extracted from ID3 tags, with a mock fallback that parses filenames.

file-renaming id3-tags mp3
Python
import os
import re
from pathlib import Path

def sanitize_filename(name: str) -> str:
    return re.sub(r'[<>:"/\\|?*]', '_', name).strip()

def rename_mp3_from_id3(path: Path) -> None:
    for f in path.glob("*.mp3"):
        # Mock ID3 extraction: derive artist/title from filename
        stem = f.stem
        if "…
12 0 Open
Automation & scripting easy

Parse WHOIS Data with Python Regex

Extract domain registration fields from a mock WHOIS record using regex and compute days until expiration.

whois regex parsing
Python
import re
from datetime import datetime


def parse_whois(whois_text: str) -> dict:
    """Extract key registration fields from a mock WHOIS record."""
    patterns = {
        "domain": r"Domain Name:\s*(.+)",
        "registrar": r"Registrar:\s*(.+)",
        "creation_date": r"Creation Date:\s*(.+)",
        "expir…
12 0 Open
Automation & scripting easy

Parse nginx access log top IPs in Python

Reads an nginx access log line by line, extracts the client IP, and returns the most frequent IPs using a regex and Counter.

nginx log parsing regex
Python
import re
from collections import Counter

def top_ips(log_file, n=10):
    ip_pattern = re.compile(r'^(\S+)')
    ip_counts = Counter()

    with open(log_file, 'r') as f:
        for line in f:
            match = ip_pattern.match(line)
            if match:
                ip_counts[match.group(1)] += 1

    return…
14 0 Open
Automation & scripting easy

Run pytest and email summary in Python

Runs pytest via subprocess, extracts the test summary line, and sends it in an email (mocked for demonstration).

pytest subprocess email
Python
import smtplib
import subprocess
from email.mime.text import MIMEText
from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart


def run_tests():
    """Run pytest and capture the summary output."""
    result = subprocess.run(
        ["pytest", "-q"],
        capture_output=True,
        text=True
    )
    return result.stdo…
13 0 Open
Automation & scripting medium

Scrape HTML Tables in Python with html.parser

Extract data from HTML tables using Python's built-in html.parser module, without third-party dependencies, by overriding callback methods to track table, row, and cell states.

html scraping parser
Python
import html.parser
from urllib.request import urlopen


class TableParser(html.parser.HTMLParser):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()
        self.in_table = False
        self.in_row = False
        self.in_cell = False
        self.current_cell = []
        self.rows = []
        self.row = []

    d…
12 0 Open
Data pipelines & processing easy

ETL in Python: Extract CSV, Transform Dict, Load JSON

Build a simple ETL pipeline in Python that reads a CSV file, transforms each row (stripping whitespace and converting numeric fields), and writes the result to JSON.

etl csv json
Python
import csv
import json
from pathlib import Path

def extract_csv(file_path):
    """Read CSV file and return list of row dictionaries."""
    with Path(file_path).open('r', newline='', encoding='utf-8') as f:
        reader = csv.DictReader(f)
        return list(reader)

def transform_dicts(rows):
    """Transform ro…
14 0 Open
Data pipelines & processing easy

ETL in Python: Extract CSV, Transform Dicts, Load JSON

Build a simple ETL pipeline that reads a CSV, normalizes keys and converts price to float, then writes structured JSON.

etl csv json
Python
import csv
import json
from pathlib import Path

def etl_csv_to_json(csv_path: str, json_path: str) -> None:
    """Extract CSV, transform rows to dicts, load to JSON."""
    with open(csv_path, mode='r', newline='', encoding='utf-8') as f:
        reader = csv.DictReader(f)
        records = list(reader)

    # Trans…
12 0 Open

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Each section groups closely related Python snippets.

Guide: free Python code samples library

Copy-ready Python snippets for learners and developers

PythonSkillset code samples are short, focused examples organised by topic and difficulty. Every snippet is server-rendered HTML — readable by search engines and easy to copy. Open any sample, read the notes, copy the code, then press Try in editor to run it in the browser with Pyodide.

How to use this library

  1. Pick a topic section — strings, lists, files, functions, and more
  2. Open a sample, read How it works, and copy the code block
  3. Run it in the IDE, tweak values, then take a related quiz or tutorial lesson

Samples vs tutorials and challenges

Samples are quick reference — one concept per page. For step-by-step teaching, use our Python tutorials. To test yourself, try quizzes or coding challenges. Clean up style with the Python formatter.