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Copy-ready Python snippets by topic and difficulty — short, focused, and runnable in the browser editor.
How to Retry on Specific Exception Tuples in Python
A decorator-based retry pattern that retries a function only when it raises exceptions specified in a tuple, with configurable retries and delay.
import time
import random
from unittest.mock import patch
def retry_on_exceptions(retries=3, exceptions=(ValueError,), delay=0.1):
def decorator(func):
def wrapper(*args, **kwargs):
for attempt in range(retries):
try:
return func(*args, **kwargs)
…
How to Send Messages to a Dead Letter Queue in Python
Simulates a poison message queue that retries failed messages up to a limit before moving them to a dead letter queue.
import json
class PoisonMessageQueue:
def __init__(self, max_retries=3):
self.dlq = []
self.max_retries = max_retries
self.processed_count = 0
self.failed_count = 0
def process_message(self, message_body):
if "poison" in message_body:
self.failed_count += 1…
How to Simulate an Outbox Pattern with Reliable Retry in Python
This code implements a mock outbox pattern with records, delivery attempts, and retries to simulate reliable message publishing.
import time
import itertools
class Outbox:
def __init__(self):
self._records = []
self._seq = itertools.count(1)
def publish(self, topic, payload):
record = {
"id": next(self._seq),
"topic": topic,
"payload": payload,
"status": "pending"…
How to Stop Receiving Requests Until Ready in Python
A mock server that refuses requests until a readiness gate is passed, simulating fail-stop behavior for production reliability.
import random
import time
class MockServer:
def __init__(self):
self.ready = False
self.requests_received = 0
def readiness_check(self):
"""Simulates a readiness probe. Returns True only when ready."""
if not self.ready:
return False
return True
def r…
How to implement a rate-limited shared counter in Python
Implements a thread-safe global counter that allows a maximum number of increments per second using a lock and time-based refill.
import threading
import time
import random
counter = 0
lock = threading.Lock()
MAX_CALLS_PER_SECOND = 3
last_refill = time.time()
def rate_limited_increment():
global counter, last_refill
with lock:
now = time.time()
if now - last_refill >= 1.0:
last_refill = now
count…
How to implement an idempotency key store in Python
Build an in-memory idempotency key store with TTL that processes a request once and reuses the cached result for duplicate calls.
import hashlib
import time
from typing import Dict, Optional
class IdempotencyStore:
"""Simple in-memory idempotency key store with mock processing."""
def __init__(self, ttl_seconds: int = 3600) -> None:
self.ttl = ttl_seconds
self._store: Dict[str, tuple[str, float]] = {}
def _is_expi…
How to implement rate limiting in Python
Build a simple sliding-window rate limiter in Python that enforces a max number of calls per time period and formats data with timestamps.
import time
class RateLimiter:
def __init__(self, max_calls, period):
self.max_calls = max_calls
self.period = period
self.calls = []
def allow(self):
now = time.time()
# Remove calls older than the period window
self.calls = [t for t in self.calls if now -…
How to implement rate limiting in Python
A beginner-friendly Python rate limiter that throttles API calls and retries parsing tasks with exponential backoff.
import time
import random
class RateLimiter:
def __init__(self, max_calls, per_seconds):
self.max_calls = max_calls
self.per_seconds = per_seconds
self.timestamps = []
def allow(self):
now = time.time()
self.timestamps = [t for t in self.timestamps if now - t < sel…
How to implement rate limiting per API key in Python
A simple sliding-window rate limiter that tracks request timestamps per API key and rejects requests exceeding the configured limit.
import time
API_RATE_LIMITS = {"api_key_1": 5, "api_key_2": 3} # max requests per window
WINDOW_SECONDS = 10
class RateLimiter:
def __init__(self, limits, window):
self.limits = limits
self.window = window
self.requests = {key: [] for key in limits}
def allow(self, api_key):
…
How to mock a fallback return value in Python
Test a function that returns a default value on failure by mocking requests.get and its side effects.
from unittest.mock import Mock, patch
import requests
def fetch_data(url, default=None):
try:
response = requests.get(url)
response.raise_for_status()
return response.json()
except (requests.RequestException, ValueError):
return default
with patch("requests.get") as mock_get:
…
How to retry idempotent operations with a mock in Python
Wrap a flaky idempotent operation in a retry loop with exponential backoff, and use unittest.mock to deterministically test the str's behavior.
import random
import time
from unittest.mock import Mock
def idempotent_operation(value):
"""Simulate an idempotent operation that sometimes fails."""
if random.random() < 0.6: # 60% failure rate
raise ConnectionError("Temporary failure")
return value * 2
def retry_with_backoff(operation, max_…
Rate Limiting in Python with a Sliding Window
A beginner-friendly dataclass-based sliding window rate limiter that controls how many calls are allowed per time window.
import time
from dataclasses import dataclass
@dataclass
class RateLimiter:
max_calls: int
window_seconds: float = 1.0
def __post_init__(self):
self.calls = []
self._start = time.monotonic()
def _update(self, now):
self.calls = [t for t in self.calls if now - t < self.window…
How to Add Metadata Attributes to a Span in Python
Create a lightweight dataclass-based Span mock that stores key-value metadata attributes for tracing or event logging.
from dataclasses import dataclass, field
from typing import Dict, Any
@dataclass
class Span:
name: str
attributes: Dict[str, Any] = field(default_factory=dict)
def set_attribute(self, key: str, value: Any) -> None:
self.attributes[key] = value
def get_attribute(self, key: str) -> Any…
How to Build a Burn Rate Alert with Multiple Time Windows in Python
Track token consumption and trigger alerts when the burn rate exceeds a threshold across multiple time windows using deque and time-based sliding windows.
import time
from collections import deque
class BurnRateAlert:
def __init__(self, windows_seconds=(60, 300, 900), threshold_rate=0.8):
self.windows = {w: deque() for w in windows_seconds}
self.threshold_rate = threshold_rate
self.previous_tokens = None
def record_sample(self, current_…
How to Build a Consumer Lag Gauge in Python
Simulate Kafka consumer lag with a Python class that tracks lag over time and reports health and averages.
import time
import random
from collections import deque
class ConsumerLagGauge:
"""Mock consumer lag gauge measuring how far behind a consumer is."""
def __init__(self, producer_rate=10, consumer_rate=7, initial_lag=0):
self.producer_rate = producer_rate
self.consumer_rate = consumer_rate
…
How to Build a Metrics Counter with Increment and Snapshot in Python
A simple dict-backed MetricsCounter class that increments named counters and returns a snapshot of the current values.
class MetricsCounter:
def __init__(self):
self._metrics = {}
def increment(self, key, delta=1):
self._metrics[key] = self._metrics.get(key, 0) + delta
def snapshot(self):
return dict(self._metrics)
if __name__ == "__main__":
counter = MetricsCounter()
counter.increment("…
How to Build a Python Latency Histogram with Mock Buckets
This code implements a mock latency histogram that records request durations into configurable buckets and outputs counts, total, and average latency.
import time
import random
from collections import Counter
class LatencyHistogram:
def __init__(self, buckets):
self.buckets = sorted(buckets)
self.counts = Counter()
self.total = 0
self.sum_latency = 0
def record(self, latency_ms):
for i, boundary in enumerate(self.bu…
How to Build an HTTP Server Request Duration Histogram in Python
Create a small HTTP server that times each GET request, buckets the duration, and prints a histogram on shutdown.
import time
import random
from collections import Counter
from http.server import HTTPServer, BaseHTTPRequestHandler
class HistogramHandler(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
response_times = Counter()
def do_GET(self):
start = time.perf_counter()
time.sleep(random.uniform(0.001, 0.1))
duratio…
How to Calculate Apdex Score from Latency Data in Python
Generate simulated latency samples and compute the Apdex score to gauge user satisfaction with an application's performance.
import random
import statistics
def generate_latencies(count=100, base=100, stddev=30):
return [max(0, random.gauss(base, stddev)) for _ in range(count)]
def apdex(latencies, threshold=200):
satisfied = sum(1 for lat in latencies if lat < threshold)
tolerating = sum(1 for lat in latencies if lat >= thres…
How to Calculate Percentile Latency in Python
Generate mock latency samples with occasional spikes and compute 50th, 90th, 95th, and 99th percentile values in milliseconds.
import random
import statistics
def generate_latency_samples(n=1000):
"""Generate realistic mock latency data (ms) with occasional spikes."""
samples = []
for _ in range(n):
# Normal case: ~50ms with jitter
base = random.gauss(50, 5)
# 2% spike chance: slow downstream or GC pause
…
How to Calculate SLO Error Budget in Python
Simulate an SLO error budget by computing allowed downtime from a target availability percentage and mocking monthly incidents.
```python
import random
def calculate_error_budget(total_seconds: int, target_availability: float) -> float:
return (1.0 - target_availability) * total_seconds
def simulate_monthly_availability(seconds_in_month: int, budget_seconds: float) -> float:
# Mock: randomly consume a fraction of the error budget i…
How to Check Service Readiness Dependencies in Python
This code simulates a readiness check for external dependencies (database, cache, queue) with mock availability data and reports readiness status.
import sys
from datetime import datetime
def check_dependencies(config):
results = []
for dep, required in config.items():
available = mock_availability(dep)
status = "READY" if available >= required else "NOT READY"
results.append((dep, available, required, status))
return result…
How to Check Uptime with a Synthetic HTTP Mock in Python
Run a mock HTTP server locally and probe it with urllib to measure synthetic uptime and response times, perfect for testing monitoring logic without external dependencies.
import http.server
import threading
import time
import urllib.request
class MockHandler(http.server.BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
def do_GET(self):
if self.path == "/health":
self.send_response(200)
self.send_header("Content-Type", "application/json")
self.end_headers()
…
How to Compute SRE Metrics Like Error Rate and Availability in Python
Tracks log events in a sliding time window and calculates error rate per second and availability percentage using an easy-to-follow class.
from collections import deque
from datetime import datetime, timedelta
from typing import Dict, Deque
class LogMetrics:
"""Simple observability helper to track log events and calculate SRE metrics."""
def __init__(self, window_seconds: int = 60):
self.window_seconds = window_seconds
self.eve…
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