Implementing complex operations in just few lines of code using specialized functions is a well known advantage of Python.
One of the Python’s most useful modules lets you go even further - itertools.
Itertools is a special module which contains different types of simple and complex iterator functions.
Have you ever used zip()?
It’s also one of the itertools.
Zip() assumes that all the iterables you passed are of same length.
What if the lengths are different?
You then have another function - zip_longest() which can give you the desirable result.
Itertools offers many more functions which are intended for a specific type of iteration.
Such as - Count() which returns evenly spaced values from the starting number.
Accumulate() returns accumulated sums, multiplication of the values passed.
You can even make permutations and combinations (which are quite common in competitive programming) a breeze by their specialized functions.
The list goes on.
And the best part is you can make even more complex iterator functions using these specialized functions themselves!
#python #datascience #machinelearning
