Must-Know Python Collections & How to Master It
Last updated on 28th Jun 2020, Blog, General
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Python programming language has four collection data types- list, tuple, sets and dictionary. But python also comes with a built-in module known as collections which has specialized data structures which basically covers for the shortcomings of the four data types. In this blog, we will go through each of those specialized data structures in detail.
What Are Collections In Python?
Collections in python are basically container data types, namely lists, sets, tuples, dictionary. They have different characteristics based on the declaration and the usage.
- A list is declared in square brackets, it is mutable, stores duplicate values and elements can be accessed using indexes.
- A tuple is ordered and immutable in nature, although duplicate entries can be there inside a tuple.
- A set is unordered and declared in square brackets. It is not indexed and does not have duplicate entries as well.
- A dictionary has key value pairs and is mutable in nature. We use square brackets to declare a dictionary.
Specialized Collection Data Structures
Collections module in python implements specialized data structures which provide alternative to python’s built-in container data types. Following are the specialized data structures in collections module.
- namedtuple( )
- deque
- Chainmap
- Counter
- OrderedDict
- defaultdict
- UserDict
- UserList
- UserString
Namedtuple( )
It returns a tuple with a named entry, which means there will be a name assigned to each value in the tuple. It overcomes the problem of accessing the elements using the index values. With namedtuple( ) it becomes easier to access these values, since you do not have to remember the index values to get specific elements.
How It Works?
First of all, you must import collections module, it does not require installation.
- from collections import namedtuple
Look at the following code to understand how you can use namedtuple.
- a = namedtuple(‘courses’ , ‘name , tech’)
- s = a(‘data science’ , ‘python’)print(s)
- #the output will be courses(name=’python’ , tech=’python’)
How it works?
How To Create A namedtuple Using A List?
- s._make([‘data science’ , ‘python’])
- #the output will be same as before.
Deque
deque pronounced as ‘deck’ is an optimized list to perform insertion and deletion easily.
- creating a dequefrom collections import deque
- a = [‘d’ , ‘u’ , ‘r’ , ‘e’ , ‘k’]
- a1 = deque(a)print(a1)
- #the output will be deque([ ‘d’ , ‘u’ , ‘r’ , ‘e’ , ‘k’ ])
Now lets take a look at how we will insert and remove items from deque.
- a1.append(‘a’)print(a1)
- # the output will be deque([ ‘d’ , ‘u’ , ‘r’ , ‘e’ , ‘k’ , ‘a’ ])
- a1.appendleft(‘e’)print(a1)
- # the output will be deque([‘e’ , ‘d’ , ‘u’ , ‘r’ , ‘e’ , ‘k’ , ‘a’ ])
As should be obvious, inserting a component is enhanced utilizing deque, also you can remove components as well.
- a1.pop()print(a1)
- #the output will be deque([ ‘e’ , ‘d’ , ‘u’ , ‘r’ , ‘e’ , ‘k’ ])
- a1.popleft()print(a1)
- #the output will be deque([ ‘d’ , ‘u’ , ‘r’ , ‘e’ , ‘k’ ])
ChainMap
It is a dictionary like class which is able to make a single view of multiple mappings. It basically returns a list of several other dictionaries. Suppose you have two dictionaries with several key value pairs, in this case ChainMap will make a single list with both the dictionaries in it.
How it works?
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- from collections import Countera = [1,1,1,1,2,3,3,4,3,3,4]
- c = Counter(a)print(c)
- #the output will be Counter = ({1:4 , 2:1 , 3:4 , 4:2})
In addition to the operations you can perform on a dictionary Counter has 3 more operations that we can perform.
- element function – It returns a list containing all the elements in the Counter.
- Most_common( ) – It returns a sorted list with the count of each element in the Counter.
- Subtract( ) – It takes an iterable object as an argument and deducts the count of the elements in the Counter.
Defaultdict
It is a dictionary subclass which calls a factory function to supply missing values. In general, it does not throw any errors when a missing key value is called in a dictionary.
How it works?
- from collections import defaultdictd = defaultdict(int)
- #we have to specify a type as well.
- d[1] = ‘edureka’d[2] = ‘python’print(d[3])
- #it will give the output as 0 instead of keyerror.
UserDict
This class acts as a wrapper around dictionary objects. The need for this class came from the necessity to subclass directly from dict. It becomes easier to work with this class as the underlying dictionary becomes an attribute.
- class collections.UserDict([initial data])
This class simulates a dictionary. The content of the instance are kept in a regular dictionary which can be accessed with the ‘data’ attribute of the class UserDict. The reference of initial data is not kept, for it to be used for other purposes.
UserList
- This class acts like a wrapper around the list objects. It is a useful base class for other list like classes which can inherit from them and override the existing methods or even add a fewer new ones as well.
- The need for this class came from the necessity to subclass directly from list. It becomes easier to work with this class as the underlying list becomes an attribute.
- class collections.UserList([list])
It is the class that simulates a list. The contents of the instance are kept in a customary list. The sub-classes of the list are relied upon to offer a constructor which can be called with either no or one contention.
from collections import ChainMap
- a = { 1: ‘acte’ , 2: ‘python’}
- b = {3: ‘data science’ , 4: ‘Machine learning’}
- c = ChainMap(a,b)
- print(c)
- #the output will be ChainMap[{1: ‘acte’ , 2: ‘python’} , {3: ‘data science’ , 4: ‘Machine learni
- from collections import ChainMap
- a = { 1: ‘acte’ , 2: ‘python’}
- b = {3: ‘data science’ , 4: ‘Machine learning’}
- c = ChainMap(a,b)
- print(c)
- #the output will be ChainMap[{1: ‘acte’ , 2: ‘python’} , {3: ‘data science’ , 4: ‘Machine learning’}]