Learn About the Collections Module in Python

Python language is one of the most popular Object Oriented Programming languages. It is one of the most widely used programming languages in the software field. The support given by the python community to its developers is one of its reason for high popularity. There are also a lot of libraries that help developers to complete projects in python language. Python is a high-level programming language. It is a general-purpose programming language. Python programming language is being used for web development, Machine Learning, and other fields in software development. The main advantage of Python is that it is very well suited for beginner programmers.

Python programming language has four different collection data types. They are :

1. List
2. Tuple
3. Sets
4. Dictionary

Apart from these different types, python language comes with built-in modules called collections. These collections have specialized data structures. These modules or collections help in covering the limitations of the four different data types.

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Collections in Python

Collections in python are of four types. They are data container types. These collections have different characteristics based on their use.

• A list is mentioned in square brackets. Lists store duplicate values. It also stores duplicate elements. These duplicate values can be accessed using indexes.
• A tuple also contains duplicate entries. It is ordered. A tuple is immutable one.
• A set is unordered. It is mentioned in square brackets. It doesn’t have duplicate entries because it is not indexed.
• A dictionary is also mentioned in square brackets. It is mutable in nature. A dictionary consists of key-value pairs.

These are inbuilt data types or collections by Python. But as an added advantage python offers modules called collections.

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Collections Module in Python

The collections module in python gives specialized data structures. These modules act as an alternative to the inbuilt data types of python. Let us look at the collection modules in Python.

• Namedtuple ()

We heard about the in-built data type tuple earlier. namedtuple is a collection module provided by Python. This returns a tuple with a named entry. There will be a name given to each value in the tuple. This also helps in overcoming the problem of accessing the elements using the index values. These values can be accessed easily with the help of namedtuple ().

• Deque

This is another collection module that is pronounced as the deck. It is an optimized list. It helps in performing deletion and insertion easily in a list. It also offers several other operations which are similar to the functions of built-in data types.

• Chainmap

Chainmap is more similar to dictionary data type. It helps in a single view of multiple mappings. It normally returns the list of other dictionaries. The importance of a chain map comes when we have more than one dictionary. Chainmap helps in the single view of these dictionaries.

• Counter

The counter is a sub-class collection module. It is the subclass of the dictionary. It is used to count hashable objects. Apart from the dictionary function counter perform three other functions, viz element function, Most_common (), subtract ().

• OrderedDict

This is also a subclass of the dictionary. OderedDict remembers the order. OrderDict remembers the entries which are added in the order. If the value of the key is changed, it will not affect the order and position because it is inserted in order in the dictionary.

• Defaultdict

Another dictionary class helps in finding the missing values. It helps prevent errors that may happen because of the missing values.

• UserDict

This class type is very easy to work with. It is also a subclass of the dictionary. It acts as a wrapper around dictionary objects. Dictionary is stimulated by this class.

• UserList

This is a class that acts as a wrapper around the list of objects. It is a base class for other lists. This class stimulates the list.

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Conclusion

Python programming language is widely used in the software field for different purposes. It comes with some built-in data type collections. Apart from these data types, there are collection modules available in python. These collections can help in doing the similar and more work than the built-in data types.