Reference library

Python Code Samples

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

159 matches
Automation & scripting medium

Find Sensitive Information in Log Files with Python

Scan log files for emails, IP addresses, API keys, and passwords using regular expressions in Python.

regex security log-analysis
Python
import re
import os
from pathlib import Path

def find_sensitive_info(log_path):
    """Scans log files for patterns like emails, IPs, API keys, and passwords."""
    patterns = {
        'Email': r'[a-zA-Z0-9._%+-]+@[a-zA-Z0-9.-]+\.[a-zA-Z]{2,}',
        'IP Address': r'\b(?:\d{1,3}\.){3}\d{1,3}\b',
        'API Key'…
38 0 Open
Automation & scripting medium

Find Zombie Processes on Linux with Python

Parse the output of `ps -eo pid,stat,comm` to detect processes in zombie state (Z) on a Linux system and report their PIDs and commands.

linux process monitoring
Python
#!/usr/bin/env python3
import os
import subprocess

def find_zombie_processes():
    """Find zombie processes (state 'Z') running on Linux."""
    try:
        result = subprocess.run(['ps', '-eo', 'pid,stat,comm'], capture_output=True, text=True, check=True)
        zombies = []
        for line in result.stdout.stri…
39 0 Open
Automation & scripting easy

How to Build a CLI with argparse in Python

Create a beginner-friendly command-line tool in Python that processes multiple filenames with optional flags for verbose output and uppercase conversion.

argparse cli scripting
Python
import argparse

def main():
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
        description="A simple CLI to process files with optional verbose mode."
    )
    parser.add_argument("filenames", nargs="+", help="Files to process")
    parser.add_argument("-v", "--verbose", action="store_true", help="Print extra details")
 …
12 0 Open
Automation & scripting medium

How to Detect Applications Consuming Excessive Memory in Python

Use psutil to list the top memory-using processes by RSS and print their names, PIDs, and memory usage in MB.

psutil memory monitoring
Python
import psutil

def find_top_memory_processes(limit=5):
    """Return top `limit` processes by memory usage (RSS)."""
    processes = []

    for proc in psutil.process_iter(['pid', 'name', 'memory_info']):
        try:
            info = proc.info
            mem = info['memory_info'].rss if info['memory_info'] else 0…
37 0 Open
Automation & scripting medium

How to Download All Assets from GitHub Releases in Python

Downloads every asset attached to the latest GitHub release of a repository, saving them locally using the GitHub API and Python's requests and pathlib libraries.

github api downloading
Python
import requests
import os
import zipfile
from pathlib import Path

def download_github_release_assets(owner: str, repo: str, output_dir: str = "release_assets") -> None:
    """Downloads all assets from the latest release of a GitHub repository."""
    releases_url = f"https://api.github.com/repos/{owner}/{repo}/relea…
41 0 Open
Automation & scripting easy

How to Generate a cloud-init User Data Mock in Python

Generate a cloud-init user data mock for a VM using a dataclass and JSON in Python.

cloud-init automation dataclasses
Python
import json
from dataclasses import dataclass, asdict

@dataclass
class VMConfig:
    hostname: str
    cpus: int
    memory_mb: int
    ssh_key: str

def generate_cloud_init_mock(config: VMConfig) -> str:
    """Build a cloud-init user-data mock for a VM."""
    user_data = {
        "hostname": config.hostname,
    …
14 0 Open
Automation & scripting easy

How to Kill Zombie Processes Matching a Name in Python

Scans running processes with ps, finds zombies whose command name matches a pattern, and attempts to kill them with SIGKILL.

subprocess process automation
Python
import subprocess
import re
import signal


def find_zombies(name_pattern):
    """Find PIDs of zombie processes matching the given pattern."""
    result = subprocess.run(["ps", "-eo", "pid,stat,comm"], capture_output=True, text=True)
    zombies = []
    for line in result.stdout.splitlines()[1:]:  # Skip header
   …
11 0 Open
Automation & scripting easy

How to Perform a DNS Lookup for A Records in Python

Resolve a hostname to IPv4 A records using Python's built-in socket.getaddrinfo and return a sorted list of addresses.

dns socket network
Python
import socket

def get_a_records(hostname):
    """Fetch A records (IPv4 addresses) for a given hostname."""
    try:
        # getaddrinfo with family AF_INET restricts to IPv4 (A records)
        infos = socket.getaddrinfo(hostname, None, socket.AF_INET)
        # Each info tuple: (family, type, proto, canonname, so…
13 0 Open
Automation & scripting medium

How to Ping Multiple Hosts in Parallel with Python ThreadPoolExecutor

A parallel host-pinging script using ThreadPoolExecutor and subprocess to check connectivity across multiple addresses concurrently.

thread-pool subprocess ping
Python
import subprocess
from concurrent.futures import ThreadPoolExecutor
from pathlib import Path

HOSTS = [
    "google.com",
    "github.com",
    "stackoverflow.com",
    "nonexistent.invalid",
    "localhost",
]

def ping_host(host: str) -> str:
    """Ping a single host and return a status string."""
    result = subp…
13 0 Open
Automation & scripting easy

How to Resize Hundreds of Images in Batch with Python

Resize every image in a folder to a target size using Pillow, creating a new subfolder for processed files.

image processing batch processing pillow
Python
import os
from PIL import Image

def resize_images_in_batch(directory, output_size=(800, 600)):
    if not os.path.exists(directory):
        print(f"Directory {directory} does not exist.")
        return
    output_dir = os.path.join(directory, "resized")
    os.makedirs(output_dir, exist_ok=True)
    for filename in…
41 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 Sort Command-Line Arguments in Python

Build a beginner-friendly argparse CLI that sorts numbers or words passed as arguments, with an optional reverse flag.

argparse cli sorting
Python
import argparse


def main():
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="Sort numbers or words from the command line.")
    parser.add_argument("items", nargs="+", help="Items to sort (numbers or words)")
    parser.add_argument("--reverse", "-r", action="store_true", help="Sort in descending order")
    args =…
13 0 Open
Automation & scripting easy

How to Write an IP Block List to hosts.deny in Python

This Python script validates a list of IP addresses and CIDR ranges, then writes them to a hosts.deny file to block connections at the TCP wrapper level.

hosts.deny ip-block ipaddress
Python
from ipaddress import ip_network

def write_hosts_deny(ip_list, output_file="hosts.deny"):
    with open(output_file, "w") as f:
        for ip in ip_list:
            try:
                ip_network(ip)
                f.write(f"ALL: {ip}\n")
            except ValueError:
                continue
    print(f"Written…
14 0 Open
Automation & scripting medium

How to check Python files for common coding mistakes

Walks a directory tree parsing each .py file with ast, reporting empty functions, bare try blocks, too many parameters, and empty classes.

ast linting code-quality
Python
import ast
import os
import sys

def check_file(filepath):
    try:
        with open(filepath) as f:
            code = f.read()
        tree = ast.parse(code, filename=filepath)
    except SyntaxError as e:
        print(f"{filepath}: SyntaxError: {e.msg}")
        return
    
    issues = []
    for node in ast.wal…
43 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 medium

Python: Archive Old Logs by Compressing Gzip by Age

A Python script that finds .log files older than a specified age and compresses them into .gz archives while removing the originals.

gzip log-rotation automation
Python
import gzip
import os
import shutil
from pathlib import Path


def archive_logs(log_dir: str, max_age_days: int) -> list[str]:
    """Compress log files older than max_age_days into .gz archives.
    
    Returns a list of compressed file paths.
    """
    cutoff = time.time() - max_age_days * 86400
    compressed = …
14 0 Open
Automation & scripting easy

Resize Disk Partitions in Python (Mock Script)

A mock disk partition resize script that uses dataclasses to model partitions, validate new sizes, and output the updated layout as JSON.

disk partition dataclass
Python
#!/usr/bin/env python3
"""Mock script to demonstrate disk partition resize logic."""
import json
from dataclasses import dataclass
from typing import Dict


@dataclass
class Partition:
    name: str
    size_gb: int
    mount_point: str

    def to_dict(self) -> Dict[str, object]:
        return {
            "name": …
16 0 Open
Data pipelines & processing easy

Count Records Processed per Category in Python

Use a Counter dictionary to track how many records of each type (ok, error, retry) were processed in a data pipeline.

counter metrics data-pipeline
Python
from collections import Counter
import random

processed_counter = Counter()

def process_records(records):
    for record in records:
        processed_counter[record] += 1
    return len(records)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    sample_records = [random.choice(["ok", "error", "retry"]) for _ in range(10)]
    print(f…
18 0 Open
Data pipelines & processing easy

How to Compress Pipeline Output Gzip Per Partition in Python

Compress each partition of pipeline output into a separate gzip file and verify the compressed data by reading it back.

gzip compression pipeline
Python
import gzip
import io
import random
from pathlib import Path


def compress_partition(partition_data: list[str], output_path: Path) -> int:
    """Compress a partition of data to a gzip file, returns bytes written."""
    with gzip.open(output_path, 'wt', encoding='utf-8') as f:
        f.writelines(partition_data)
  …
13 0 Open
Data pipelines & processing easy

How to Hash Email Addresses in a PII Masking Pipeline in Python

Replaces every email address in a text string with its SHA-256 hash to protect personally identifiable information (PII).

pii hashing sha256
Python
import hashlib
import re

def hash_email(email: str) -> str:
    """Mask an email address by hashing it with SHA-256."""
    normalized = email.strip().lower()
    return hashlib.sha256(normalized.encode("utf-8")).hexdigest()

def mask_pii_emails(text: str) -> str:
    """Replace all email addresses in text with their…
14 0 Open
Git + Python easy

Upload Assets to GitHub Release with Python Mock

Simulates uploading binary and text assets to a GitHub release using a mock server, returning structured metadata for each upload.

git github releases
Python
import json
import os
import tempfile
from datetime import datetime

class ReleaseUploader:
    """Simulates uploading assets to a release with a mock server."""
    
    def __init__(self, owner: str, repo: str, tag: str):
        self.owner = owner
        self.repo = repo
        self.tag = tag
        self.uploade…
12 0 Open
Cloud + Python easy

How to Enforce Tag Policies on AWS Resources in Python

Build a reusable Python class that checks AWS resources against a required-tag policy and reports compliance with missing tags.

aws tagging compliance
Python
import json
from dataclasses import dataclass, field
from typing import Dict, List


@dataclass
class Resource:
    arn: str
    tags: Dict[str, str] = field(default_factory=dict)


class TagPolicyEnforcer:
    def __init__(self, required_tags: List[str]):
        self.required_tags = set(required_tags)

    def enfor…
15 0 Open
Cloud + Python medium

Mock Google Pub/Sub publish and pull in Python

A lightweight in-memory mock of Google Pub/Sub with publisher/subscriber classes to test topic-based fan-out and message pulling without real infrastructure.

pubsub gcp testing
Python
import json
import time
from collections import deque
from dataclasses import dataclass, field
from typing import Any, Callable


@dataclass
class Message:
    data: str
    attributes: dict[str, str] = field(default_factory=dict)
    message_id: str | None = None
    ack_id: str | None = None


class MockPublisher:
 …
15 0 Open
Modern tooling medium

How to Bind and Mock structlog Context in Python

Shows how to bind persistent key-value context to a structlog logger, unbind keys, and mock the logger in tests to verify context is passed correctly.

structlog logging mocking
Python
import structlog
from unittest.mock import patch

logger = structlog.get_logger()

def demo():
    logger = structlog.get_logger()
    logger = logger.bind(user_id=42, request_id="abc123")
    logger.info("user logged in", action="login")
    
    # Unbind a key
    logger = logger.unbind("user_id")
    logger.info("r…
19 0 Open

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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.