Sockets and the socket API are used to send messages across a network. They provide a form of inter-process communication (IPC). The network can be a logical, local network to the computer, or one that’s physically connected to an external network, with its own connections to other networks. The obvious example is the Internet, which you connect to via your ISP. In this tutorial, you’ll create: A simple socket server and client An improved version that handles multiple connections simultaneously […]

Sometimes you need to write a Python class that provides multiple ways to construct objects. In other words, you want a class that implements multiple constructors. This kind of class comes in handy when you need to create instances using different types or numbers of arguments. Having the tools to provide multiple constructors will help you write flexible classes that can adapt to changing needs. In Python, there are several techniques and tools that you can use to construct classes, […]

Python’s zipfile is a standard library module intended to manipulate ZIP files. This file format is a widely adopted industry standard when it comes to archiving and compressing digital data. You can use it to package together several related files. It also allows you to reduce the size of your files and save disk space. Most importantly, it facilitates data exchange over computer networks. Knowing how to create, read, write, populate, extract, and list ZIP files using the zipfile module […]

Python is a slow language, so computation is best delegated to code written in something faster. You can do this with existing libraries like NumPy and SciPy, but what happens when you need to implement a new algorithm, and you don’t want to write code in a lower-level language? For certain types of computation, in particular array-focused code, the Numba library can significantly speed up your code. Sometimes you’ll need to tweak it a bit, sometimes it’ll just work with […]

When programming, you’ll often need to check if all the items in an iterable are truthy. Coding this functionality repeatedly can be annoying and inefficient. Luckily, Python provides the built-in all() function to solve this problem. This function takes an iterable and checks all its items for truth value, which is handy for finding out if those items have a given property or meet a particular condition. Python’s all() is a powerful tool that can help you write clean, readable, […]

In January 2022, the code formatter Black saw its first non-beta release and published a new stability policy. IPython, the powerful interactive Python shell, marked the release of version 8.0, its first major version release in three years. Additionally, PEP 665, aimed at making reproducible installs easier by specifying a format for lock files, was rejected. Last but not least, a fifteen-year-old memory leak bug in Python was fixed. Let’s dive into the biggest Python news stories from the past […]