75
Store lookup tables as magic numbers
Say you want to hardcode a Boolean lookup table, like which of the first twelve English numbers contain an n.
0: False
1: True
2: False
3: False
4: False
5: False
6: False
7: True
8: False
9: True
10:True
11:True
12:False
Then, you can implement this lookup table concisely as:
3714>>i&1
with the resulting 0 ...
65
Collapse two numerical loops into one
Say you're iterating over the cells of an m*n grid. Instead of two nested for loops, one for the row and one of the columns, it's usually shorter to use a single loop to iterate over the m*n cells of the grid. You can extract the row and column of the cell inside the loop.
Original code:
for i in range(m):
for j in ...
59
For integer n, you can write
n+1 as -~n
n-1 as ~-n
because the bit flip ~x equals -1-x. This uses the same number of characters, but can indirectly cut spaces or parens for operator precedence.
Compare:
while n-1: #Same as while n!=1
while~-n:
c/(n-1)
c/~-n
or f(n)+1
or-~f(n)
(n-1)/10+(n-1)%10
~-n/10+~-n%10
The operators ~ and unary - are ...
54
A nice way to convert an iterable to list on Python 3:
imagine you have some iterable, like
i = (1,2,3,4)
i = range(4)
i = (x**2 for x in range(5))
But you need a list:
x=list(i) #the default way
*x,=i #using starred assignment -> 4 char fewer
It's very useful to make a list of chars out of a string
s=['a','b','c','d','e']
s=list('abcde')
*s,='...
52
This isn't the same solution as llhuii's, but it's also 42 bytes long.
n=0;exec'print n;n^=(n^n+2)%3/2;n+=2;'*400
Try it online!
Thanks to @JonathanFrech, we're now at 40 bytes.
n=0;exec'print n;n=n+2^(n^n+2)/2%3;'*400
Try it online!
There's another byte to be saved, for a total of 39.
n=0;exec'print n;n=n+2^-(n^n+2)%3;'*400
Try it online!
49
Instead of range(x), you can use the * operator on a list of anything, if you don't actually need to use the value of i:
for i in[1]*8:pass
as opposed to
for i in range(8):pass
If you need to do this more than twice, you could assign any iterable to a variable, and multiply that variable by the range you want:
r=1,
for i in r*8:pass
for i in r*1000:pass
...
47
You can use the good old alien smiley face to reverse sequences:
[1, 2, 3, 4][::-1] # => [4, 3, 2, 1]
41
Extended iterable unpacking ("Starred assignment", Python 3 only)
The best way to explain this is via an example:
>>> a,*b,c=range(5)
>>> a
0
>>> b
[1, 2, 3]
>>> c
4
We've already seen a use for this — turning an iterable into a list in Python 3:
a=list(range(10))
*a,=range(10)
Here are a few more uses.
Getting the ...
37
For ages it bothered me that I couldn't think of a short way to get the entire alphabet. If you use range enough that R=range is worth having in your program, then
[chr(i+97)for i in R(26)]
is shorter than the naive
'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'
, but otherwise it's longer by a single character. It haunted me that the clever one that required some ...
37
Python 2 - 12 characters
print 8**999
The decimal representation of all even numbers from 0 to 100 can be found in the output:
...
35
43 bytes
(4**n+1)**n%4**n**2/n&2**(2*n*n+n)/-~2**n<1
Try it online!
The method is similar to Dennis' second (deleted) answer, but this answer is easier to be proved correct.
Proof
Short form
The most significant digit of (4**n+1)**n%4**n**2 in base \$2^n\$ that is not divisible by \$n\$ will make the next (less significant) digit in (4**n+1)**n%...
34
Python 3 does not have cmp. For golfing, you can do
11 chars
(a>b)-(a<b)
which loses 3 chars over cmp(a,b).
Amusingly, this is also an "official" workaround. The What's New in Python 3 page says "(If you really need the cmp() functionality, you could use the expression (a > b) - (a < b) as the equivalent for cmp(a, b).)"
33
Although python doesn't have switch statements, you can emulate them with dictionaries. For example, if you wanted a switch like this:
switch (a):
case 1:
runThisCode()
break
case 2:
runThisOtherCode()
break
case 3:
runThisOtherOtherCode()
break
You could use if statements, or you could use this:
...
32
When you have two boolean values, a and b, if you want to find out if both a and b are true, use * instead of and:
if a and b: #7 chars
vs
if a*b: #3 chars
if either value is false, it will evaluate as 0 in that statement, and an integer value is only true if it is nonzero.
31
Python 3, 22 (Possibly not allowed)
If the challenge is "to create a python script which prints the even numbers from 0 to 100" and not "to create a python script which prints the even numbers from 0 to 100, newline separated", then the shortest solution is:
print(*range(0,101,2))
Remember, it's very important in code golf not to put any limitations on ...
28
No problemo! You can alias a method, but you have to know how to use it:
>>> r=str.replace
>>> a='hello'
>>> r(r(r(r(a,'h','j'),'e','i'),'l','m'),'o','y')
'jimmy'
The key is that you have to pass self explicitly, because the alias is a kind of function that takes an extra argument that takes self:
>>> type(r)
<type '...
28
Getting 39 bytes
This is an explanation of how I got a 39-byte solution, which Dennis and JonathanFrech found separately as well. Or, rather, it explains how one could arrive at the answer in hindsight, in a way that's much nicer than my actual path to it, which was full of muddy reasoning and dead ends.
n=0
exec"print n;n=n+2^-(n+2^n)%3;"*400
Writing ...
27
Exploit Python 2 string representations
Python 2 lets you convert an object x to its string representation `x` at a cost of only 2 chars. Use this for tasks that are easier done on the object's string than the object itself.
Join characters
Given a list of characters l=['a','b','c'], one can produce ''.join(l) as `l`[2::5], which saves a byte.
The ...
26
Use ~ to index from the back of a list
If L is a list, use L[~i] to get the i'th element from the back.
This is the i'th element of the reverse of L. The bit complement ~i equals -i-1, and so fixes the off-by-one error from L[-i].
26
Ceil and Floor
If you ever want to get the rounded-up result for a division, much like you'd do with // for floor, you could use math.ceil(3/2) for 15 or the much shorter -(-3//2) for 8 bytes.
math.floor(n) : 13 bytes+12 for import
n//1 : 4 bytes
math.ceil(n) : 12 bytes+12 for import
-(-n//1) : 8 bytes
26
12 chars/assignment + 9 chars of overhead
V=vars() # do once at the start of the program
V["xy"[b]]=z
Note that this only works at global scope, it does not work inside a function.
25
Choosing one of two numbers based on a condition
You already know to use the list selection [x,y][b] with a Boolean b for the ternary expression y if b else x. The variables x, y, and b can also be expressions, though note that both x and y are evaluated even when not selected.
Here's some potential optimizations when x and y are numbers.
[0,y][b] -> y*...
24
Change import * to import*
If you haven't heard, import* saves chars!
from math import*
is only 1 character longer than import math as m and you get to remove all instances of m.
Even one time use is a saver!
24
Use += instead of append and extend
A.append(B)
can be shortened to:
A+=B,
B, here creates a one-element tuple which can be used to extend A just like [B] in A+=[B].
A.extend(B)
can be shortened to:
A+=B
24
PEP448 – Additional Unpacking Generalizations
With the release of Python 3.5, manipulation of lists, tuples, sets and dicts just got golfier.
Turning an iterable into a set/list
Compare the pairs:
set(T)
{*T}
list(T)
[*T]
tuple(T)
(*T,)
Much shorter! Note, however, that if you just want to convert something to a list and assign it to a variable, ...
22
Python2 26
i=0;exec"print i;i+=2;"*51
independent discovery of @bitpwner's solution
21
Total: 104 101 99 chars
Problem 1
Problem 2
Problem 3
Problem 4
Problem 5
Problem 6
Problem 7
Problem 8
Problem 9
Problem 10
20
Length tradeoff reference
I've think it would be useful to have a reference for the character count differences for some common alternative ways of doing things, so that I can know when to use which. I'll use _ to indicate an expression or piece of code.
Assign to a variable: +4
x=_;x
_
So, this breaks even if you
Use _ a second time: _ has length 5
Use ...
20
Here's a whole bunch of micro-optimisations you can do:
Use .split() to create a long list (-17 bytes):
c=['yellow','blue','white','green','Black', 'purple', 'silver', 'cyan', 'magenta', 'red']
c='yellow blue white green Black purple silver cyan magenta red'.split()
Remove extraneous brackets (-2 bytes):
l+=y[0]*(random.randint(n[o],n[o+1]))
l+=y[0]*...
20
54 52 50 49 48 45 39 bytes
Removed 4 bytes thanks to Dennis.
The latest version is inspired by the "some reason" in xnor's answer.
class t(int):__add__=type
a=b=t()
c=d=0
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