Python’s collections: A Buffet of Specialized Data Types
Python’s collections
module provides a rich set of specialized container data types carefully designed to approach specific programming problems in a Pythonic and efficient way. The module also provides wrapper classes that make it safer to create custom classes that behave similar to the built-in types dict
, list
, and str
.
Learning about the data types and classes in collections
will allow you to grow your programming tool kit with a valuable set of reliable and efficient tools.
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to:
- Write readable and explicit code with
namedtuple
- Build efficient queues and stacks with
deque
- Count objects quickly with
Counter
- Handle missing dictionary keys with
defaultdict
- Guarantee the insertion order of keys with
OrderedDict
- Manage