✅ 10 Python Code Snippets for Interviews & Practice 🐍🧠

1. Factorial using recursion

def factorial(n):
    return 1 if n == 0 else n * factorial(n - 1)

print(factorial(5))  # Output: 120

2. Find the second largest number in a list

nums = [10, 20, 30]
second_largest = sorted(set(nums))[-2]
print(second_largest)  # Output: 20

3. Remove punctuation from a string

import string

s = "Hello, world!"
s_clean = s.translate(str.maketrans('', '', string.punctuation))
print(s_clean)  # Output: Hello world

4. Find common elements between two lists

a = [1, 2, 3]
b = [2, 3, 4]
common = list(set(a) & set(b))
print(common)  # Output: [2, 3]

5. Convert a list of words into a string

words = ['Python', 'is', 'fun']
sentence = ' '.join(words)
print(sentence)  # Output: Python is fun

6. Reverse words in a sentence

s = "Hello World"
reversed_s = ' '.join(s.split()[::-1])
print(reversed_s)  # Output: World Hello

7. Check if two strings are anagrams

def is_anagram(a, b):
    return sorted(a) == sorted(b)

print(is_anagram("listen", "silent"))  # Output: True

8. Get unique values from a list of dictionaries

data = [{'a': 1}, {'a': 2}, {'a': 1}]
unique_values = set(d['a'] for d in data)
print(unique_values)  # Output: {1, 2}

9. Create a dictionary from a range with squares

squares = {x: x**2 for x in range(5)}
print(squares)  # Output: {0: 0, 1: 1, 2: 4, 3: 9, 4: 16}

10. Sort a list of tuples by the second item

pairs = [(1, 3), (2, 1)]
sorted_pairs = sorted(pairs, key=lambda x: x[1])
print(sorted_pairs)  # Output: [(2, 1), (1, 3)]

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💡 Pro Tip:
Practice these snippets for lists, strings, dictionaries, and basic algorithms — they often appear in Python interviews and coding tests.