Python interviews test whether you understand the language's model — how names bind to objects, what mutability implies, how iteration is lazy — rather than syntax. These are the questions that come up, with the traps interviewers use to check.
🎤 Practise these in an AI mock interviewWhere most Python follow-ups originate.
None and create the object inside the function.def add(item, basket=[]): # wrong: one list, shared forever
basket.append(item)
return basket
add('a') # ['a']
add('b') # ['a', 'b'] <- surprise
def add(item, basket=None): # correct
basket = [] if basket is None else basket
basket.append(item)
return basket== compares values; is compares identity — whether both names refer to the same object. Small integers and short strings are cached, so is appears to work on them and then fails on larger values. Use is only for singletons: x is None.copy.copy() duplicates the outer object but shares the nested ones, so mutating a nested list is visible through both. copy.deepcopy() duplicates recursively. Slicing (lst[:]) is a shallow copy too — a frequent source of surprise with lists of lists.*args collects extra positional arguments into a tuple; **kwargs collects extra keyword arguments into a dict. At a call site the same symbols do the reverse — they unpack a sequence or a mapping into arguments. They are what let a decorator wrap a function of any signature.The intermediate round — asked to see whether you write Python or write Java in Python.
@ syntax is shorthand for reassigning the name to the wrapped version.import functools, time
def timed(fn):
@functools.wraps(fn) # keeps the original name and docstring
def wrapper(*args, **kwargs):
start = time.perf_counter()
try:
return fn(*args, **kwargs)
finally:
print(f"{fn.__name__} took {time.perf_counter() - start:.3f}s")
return wrapper
@timed
def slow(): ...functools.wraps? Without it the wrapper replaces the function's name, docstring and signature, which breaks introspection and confuses every debugging session afterwards.yield instead of return, producing values one at a time and suspending in between. It holds one item in memory rather than the whole sequence, so it can process a file larger than RAM, or an infinite stream. The cost is that it can only be consumed once.def read_lines(path):
with open(path) as f:
for line in f: # lazy: one line at a time
yield line.rstrip()
# memory stays flat no matter how large the file is
count = sum(1 for line in read_lines('huge.log') if 'ERROR' in line)sum, any, max — the generator is the better choice, because the list you build is thrown away anyway.__iter__. An iterator produces the next value: it implements __next__ and raises StopIteration when exhausted. A list is iterable but is not an iterator, which is why you can loop over it repeatedly; a generator is its own iterator, which is why you cannot.__enter__ runs on entry and __exit__ on exit, including when the body raises. It is how files get closed and locks released without a try/finally at every call site.The questions that separate scripting familiarity from understanding.
multiprocessing, which runs separate interpreters.@classmethod receives the class as its first argument, so it can construct instances of the actual subclass — which is what makes it right for alternative constructors like from_json. A @staticmethod receives nothing implicit; it is a plain function that lives in the class for organisation.Class.method(instance).cProfile or timeit, never a guess. Then, in order of return: use the right data structure (a set for membership turns an O(n²) scan into O(n)); move the work into built-ins and comprehensions, which run in C; use a library that vectorises it, such as NumPy; and only then reach for multiprocessing or a compiled extension.The questions that check you have written real Python, not just studied it.
a | b from Python 3.9, or {**a, **b} before that. In both, keys in b win. a.update(b) does it in place and returns None — assigning its result is a common slip.f"{name} scored {score:.2f}". It is faster than % and .format(), reads in the order it prints, and supports format specifiers and, since 3.8, f"{value=}" for debugging, which prints both the expression and its value.sorted(items, key=lambda d: d['score'], reverse=True), or operator.itemgetter('score') which is faster. Python's sort is stable, so sorting twice — by the secondary key first, then the primary — gives a correct multi-level sort.from operator import itemgetter
rows.sort(key=itemgetter('name')) # secondary key first
rows.sort(key=itemgetter('score'), reverse=True) # then primary - stablelist.pop(0) is O(n) because every remaining element shifts; collections.deque gives O(1) at both ends. It is the right structure for a queue, a sliding window, or a bounded history with maxlen..py file. A package is a directory of modules, historically marked by __init__.py. Both are imported the same way; a package just adds a namespace level.python -m venv .venv creates one.except: — that swallows KeyboardInterrupt and hides real bugs. Keep the try block to the line that can actually fail. Use else for the code that runs only when nothing was raised, and finally for cleanup. When re-raising with context, raise NewError(...) from e preserves the original traceback.for line in f:. Combine it with a generator pipeline so filtering and transforming stay lazy too. f.read() and f.readlines() both pull the entire file into memory and are the wrong answer here.Most candidates know the material and still stumble when asked out loud. Take a Python mock interview where the AI follows up on what you actually say.
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