Python 


Cheat Sheet
Mosh Hamedani

Code with Mosh (codewithmosh.com)

1st Edition
About this Cheat Sheet

This cheat sheet includes the materials I’ve covered in my Python tutorial for
Beginners on YouTube. Both the YouTube tutorial and this cheat cover the core
language constructs but they are not complete by any means.

If you want to learn everything Python has to offer and become a Python expert,
check out my Complete Python Programming Course:

http://bit.ly/complete-python-course
About the Author



Hi! My name is Mosh Hamedani. I’m a software engineer

with two decades of experience and I’ve taught over three
million how to code or how to become a professional
software engineer. It’s my mission to make software 

engineering simple and accessible to everyone.

https://codewithmosh.com

https://youtube.com/user/programmingwithmosh

https://twitter.com/moshhamedani

https://facebook.com/programmingwithmosh/
Variables .................................................................................................. 5
Comments ................................................................................................. 5
Receiving Input ........................................................................................5
Strings ......................................................................................................6
Arithmetic Operations .............................................................................7
If Statements ............................................................................................8
Comparison operators ............................................................................ 8
While loops ............................................................................................... 8
For loops ...................................................................................................9
Lists ........................................................................................................... 9
Tuples ........................................................................................................9
Dictionaries.............................................................................................10
Functions .................................................................................................10
Exceptions................................................................................................ 11
Classes...................................................................................................... 11
Inheritance .............................................................................................12
Modules ................................................................................................... 12
Packages ..................................................................................................13
Python Standard Library ......................................................................13
Pypi .........................................................................................................14
Want to Become a Python Expert? ........................................................ 14
Variables
We use variables to temporarily store data in computer’s memory.

price = 10

rating = 4.9

course_name = ‘Python for Beginners’

is_published = True

In the above example,

• price is an integer (a whole number without a decimal point)

• rating is a float (a number with a decimal point)

• course_name is a string (a sequence of characters)

• is_published is a boolean. Boolean values can be True or False.

Comments
We use comments to add notes to our code. Good comments explain the hows and
whys, not what the code does. That should be reflected in the code itself. Use
comments to add reminders to yourself or other developers, or also explain your
assumptions and the reasons you’ve written code in a certain way.

# This is a comment and it won’t get executed.


# Our comments can be multiple lines.

Receiving Input
We can receive input from the user by calling the input() function.

birth_year = int(input(‘Birth year: ‘))

The input() function always returns data as a string. So, we’re converting the
result into an integer by calling the built-in int() function.
Strings
We can define strings using single (‘ ‘) or double (“ “) quotes.

To define a multi-line string, we surround our string with tripe quotes (“””).

We can get individual characters in a string using square brackets [].

course = ‘Python for Beginners’


course[0] # returns the first character

course[1] # returns the second character

course[-1] # returns the first character from the end 

course[-2] # returns the second character from the end

We can slice a string using a similar notation:

course[1:5]

The above expression returns all the characters starting from the index position of 1
to 5 (but excluding 5). The result will be ytho

If we leave out the start index, 0 will be assumed.

If we leave out the end index, the length of the string will be assumed.

We can use formatted strings to dynamically insert values into our strings:

name = ‘Mosh’

message = f’Hi, my name is {name}’

message.upper() # to convert to uppercase

message.lower() # to convert to lowercase

message.title() # to capitalize the first letter of every word

message.find(‘p’) # returns the index of the first occurrence of p 


(or -1 if not found)

message.replace(‘p’, ‘q’)
To check if a string contains a character (or a sequence of characters), we use the in
operator:

contains = ‘Python’ in course

Arithmetic Operations
+

/ # returns a float

// # returns an int

% # returns the remainder of division

** # exponentiation - x ** y = x to the power of y

Augmented assignment operator:

x = x + 10

x += 10

Operator precedence:

1. parenthesis

2. exponentiation

3. multiplication / division

4. addition / subtraction
If Statements
if is_hot:

print(“hot day”)

elif is_cold:

print(“cold day”)

else: 

print(“beautiful day”)

Logical operators:

if has_high_income and has_good_credit: 


...

if has_high_income or has_good_credit: 

...

is_day = True

is_night = not is_day

Comparison operators
a > b

a >= b (greater than or equal to)

a < b

a <= b

a == b (equals)

a != b (not equals)

While loops
i = 1

while i < 5:

print(i)

i += 1
For loops
for i in range(1, 5): 

print(i)


• range(5): generates 0, 1, 2, 3, 4

• range(1, 5): generates 1, 2, 3, 4

• range(1, 5, 2): generates 1, 3

Lists
numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

numbers[0] # returns the first item 

numbers[1] # returns the second item

numbers[-1] # returns the first item from the end

numbers[-2] # returns the second item from the end 


numbers.append(6) # adds 6 to the end


numbers.insert(0, 6) # adds 6 at index position of 0

numbers.remove(6) # removes 6

numbers.pop() # removes the last item

numbers.clear() # removes all the items

numbers.index(8) # returns the index of first occurrence of 8

numbers.sort() # sorts the list

numbers.reverse() # reverses the list

numbers.copy() # returns a copy of the list

Tuples
They are like read-only lists. We use them to store a list of items. But once we
define a tuple, we cannot add or remove items or change the existing items.

coordinates = (1, 2, 3)

We can unpack a list or a tuple into separate variables:

x, y, z = coordinates
Dictionaries
We use dictionaries to store key/value pairs.

customer = {

“name”: “John Smith”,

“age”: 30,

“is_verified”: True

}

We can use strings or numbers to define keys. They should be unique. We can use
any types for the values. 


customer[“name”] # returns “John Smith”


customer[“type”] # throws an error 

customer.get(“type”, “silver”) # returns “silver”

customer[“name”] = “new name”


Functions
We use functions to break up our code into small chunks. These chunks are easier
to read, understand and maintain. If there are bugs, it’s easier to find bugs in a
small chunk than the entire program. We can also re-use these chunks.

def greet_user(name): 

print(f”Hi {name}”) 


greet_user(“John”)

Parameters are placeholders for the data we can pass to functions. Arguments
are the actual values we pass.

We have two types of arguments:

• Positional arguments: their position (order) matters

• Keyword arguments: position doesn’t matter - we prefix them with the parameter
name.
# Two positional arguments

greet_user(“John”, “Smith”)

# Keyword arguments

calculate_total(order=50, shipping=5, tax=0.1)

Our functions can return values. If we don’t use the return statement, by default
None is returned. None is an object that represents the absence of a value.

def square(number): 

return number * number 



result = square(2)

print(result) # prints 4


Exceptions
Exceptions are errors that crash our programs. They often happen because of bad
input or programming errors. It’s our job to anticipate and handle these exceptions
to prevent our programs from cashing.

try: 

age = int(input(‘Age: ‘))

income = 20000

risk = income / age 

print(age)

except ValueError:

print(‘Not a valid number’)

except ZeroDivisionError:

print(‘Age cannot be 0’)

Classes
We use classes to define new types.

class Point: 

def __init__(self, x, y): 

self.x = x

self.y = y 

def move(self): 

print(“move”) 

 


When a function is part of a class, we refer to it as a method.

Classes define templates or blueprints for creating objects. An object is an instance

of a class. Every time we create a new instance, that instance follows the structure
we define using the class.

point1 = Point(10, 5)


point2 = Point(2, 4)

__init__ is a special method called constructor. It gets called at the time of

creating new objects. We use it to initialize our objects.

Inheritance
Inheritance is a technique to remove code duplication. We can create a base class
to define the common methods and then have other classes inherit these methods.

class Mammal: 

def walk(self): 

print(“walk”)



class Dog(Mammal): 

def bark(self): 

print(“bark”)


dog = Dog()

dog.walk() # inherited from Mammal

dog.bark() # defined in Dog 


Modules
A module is a file with some Python code. We use modules to break up our
program into multiple files. This way, our code will be better organized. We won’t
have one gigantic file with a million lines of code in it!

There are 2 ways to import modules: we can import the entire module, or specific
objects in a module.
# importing the entire converters module

import converters

converters.kg_to_lbs(5)

# importing one function in the converters module


from converters import kg_to_lbs

kg_to_lbs(5)

Packages
A package is a directory with __init__.py in it. It can contain one or more
modules.

# importing the entire sales module 


from ecommerce import sales

sales.calc_shipping()

# importing one function in the sales module


from ecommerce.sales import calc_shipping

calc_shipping()

Python Standard Library

Python comes with a huge library of modules for performing common tasks such as
sending emails, working with date/time, generating random values, etc.

Random Module
import random 



random.random() # returns a float between 0 to 1

random.randint(1, 6) # returns an int between 1 to 6 



members = [‘John’, ‘Bob’, ‘Mary’]

leader = random.choice(members) # randomly picks an item

Pypi
Python Package Index (pypi.org) is a directory of Python packages published by
Python developers around the world. We use pip to install or uninstall these
packages.

pip install openpyxl

pip uninstall openpyxl


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