Python Data Science Toolbox (Part 2)

You'll learn all about iterators and iterables, which you have already worked with when writing for loops. You'll learn some handy functions that will allow you to effectively work with iterators. And you’ll finish the chapter with a use case that is pertinent to the world of data science and dealing with large amounts of data—in this case, data from Twitter that you will load in chunks using iterators.

In this chapter, you'll build on your knowledge of iterators and be introduced to list comprehensions, which allow you to create complicated lists—and lists of lists—in one line of code! List comprehensions can dramatically simplify your code and make it more efficient, and will become a vital part of your Python data science toolbox. You'll then learn about generators, which are extremely helpful when working with large sequences of data that you may not want to store in memory, but instead generate on the fly.

This chapter will allow you to apply your newly acquired skills toward wrangling and extracting meaningful information from a real-world dataset—the World Bank's World Development Indicators. You'll have the chance to write your own functions and list comprehensions as you work with iterators and generators to solidify your Python data science chops.