10 amazing Python tricks that will astonish you

These are 10 awesome python tricks that will really increase your Python knowledge and these can be handy for an interview as well, so make sure you go through them.
Trick #1

Reversing a string in Python

>>> a =  "codementor"
>>> print "Reverse is",a[::-1]
Reverse is rotnemedoc

Trick #2

Transposing a Matrix

>>> mat = [[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6]]
>>> zip(*mat)
[(1, 4), (2, 5), (3, 6)]

Trick #3

a = [1,2,3]

Store all three values of the list in 3 new variables

>>> a = [1, 2, 3]
>>> x, y, z = a 
>>> x
1
>>> y
2
>>> z
3

Trick #4

a = ["Code", "mentor", "Python", "Developer"]

Create a single string from all the elements in list above.

>>> print " ".join(a)
Code mentor Python Developer

Trick #5

List 1 = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']

List 2 = ['p', 'q', 'r', 's']

Write a Python code to print

• ap
• bq
• cr
• ds

>>> for x, y in zip(list1,list2):
...    print x, y
...
a p
b q
c r
d s

Trick #6

Swap two numbers with one line of code.

a,b = b,a

Trick #7

Print "codecodecodecode mentormentormentormentormentor" without using loops

>>> print "code"*4+' '+"mentor"*5
codecodecodecode mentormentormentormentormentor

Trick #8

a = [[1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6]]

Convert it to a single list without using any loops.

Output:- [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

>>> import itertools 
>>> list(itertools.chain.from_iterable(a))
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Trick #9

Checking if two words are anagrams

def is_anagram(word1, word2):
    """Checks whether the words are anagrams.
    word1: string
    word2: string
    returns: boolean
    """

from collections import Counter
def is_anagram(str1, str2):
     return Counter(str1) == Counter(str2)
>>> is_anagram('abcd','dbca')
True
>>> is_anagram('abcd','dbaa')
False

Trick #10.

Taking a string input.

For example "1 2 3 4" and return [1, 2, 3, 4]

Remember list being returned has integers in it.
Don't use more than one line of code.

>>> result = map(lambda x:int(x) ,raw_input().split())
1 2 3 4
>>> result
[1, 2, 3, 4]