In here are code snippets, examples, and other ways to help teach some of the concepts and tricks in Python.

If you're new to Python you may wonder what you should learn and when you should learn it. I recommend this order seen below. Each section below has its own folder above; each bullet point has its own file within that folder.

So if you wanted to learn more about variable assignment, go to the folder section_01_(basics) and open up variable_assignment.py

• Simple Math
• Variable Assignment
• Basic Syntax and Logic
• Data Types: int, float, bool, str

• Identifying and using strings
• String slicing
• String formatting
• String methods
• • str.replace()
• • str.find()
• • str.count()
• • str.lower()

• Logical control; changing the behavior of your programs
• and keyword, or keyword
• if / else structure
• if / elif ... / else structure
• Nesting conditionals

• Containers for data types
• First In, Last Out (Stack)
• Accessing specific list items through index (slice notation)
• List methods
• • list.append()
• • list.insert()
• • list.pop()
• • list.extend()
• Finding items in list (in keyword)
• Deduplicating a list using list(set(list_to_deduplicate))

• for loop (for each item in a list: ...)
• enumerate()
• zip()
• range()
• while loop (ask each time: is this still true?)

• str.join() (create a string from a list)
• str.split() (create a list from a string)

• with open(filename) as textfile: ...
• file.read()
• Reading text files
• Reading CSV files
• File handling flags (r, w, b, +)
• Writing to files

• • Types (used primarily for converting one type to another)
• int()
• float()
• str()
• bool()
• list()
• set()
• dict()
• • Comparison and Calculation
• abs()
• len()
• max()
• min()
• round()
• sum()
• • Loop (Sequence) Control
• enumerate()
• range() / xrange()
• reversed()
• sorted()
• zip()

• def keyword
• arguments
• default arguments
• *args
• **kwargs
• return keyword
• sequence unpacking (return and receive multiple values)
• namespaces

• Accessing specific dictionary items through key (looks like a slice)
• Accessing all keys as a list using .keys()
• Faking a sorted dictionary by using sorted() on the .keys()
• Accessing all values as a list using .values()
• Accessing all key, value pairs as a list using .items()
• Adding new items through .fromkeys()
• Checking for whether a key exists with .has_key
• Using .get() to safely get a key's value if it exists without getting an error if not
• Adding new items with direct assignment and .update()

• Accessing specific items in a nested list
• Accessing specific items in a nested dictionary
• Accessing specific items in a nested list within a dictionary
• Accessing specific items in a nested dictionary within a list
• If you can do those four above, you can handle receiving JSON API returns

• import keyword
• from ... import ... as ... structure
• time
• random
• math
• re (regular expressions)
• os
• sys
• json

• Installing external libraries with easy_install
• Using easy_install to install pip (an easier / better way to install external libraries)
• requests (web crawling made easy)
• BeautifulSoup (parsing HTML)
• xlrd (Read Excel .xls files)
• xlwt (Write to Excel .xls files)
• xlsxwriter (Write to Excel .xls and .xlsx files, with additional functionality beyond xlwt)
• cherrypy (Simple, lightweight framework for serving web pages)
• psycopg2 (Connect to and issue SQL commands to your postgresql database)

• try / except syntax
• Using multiple excepts
• Recognizing the different error types
• Exception, the generic exception type (use sparingly)
• Nesting exception handling
• try / except / else syntax

• List Comprehensions
• Inline Conditionals
• Generators

• Classes
• Magic Methods