Essential Coding Style Guidelines Every Python Developer Should Know

Write better Python code by applying the correct format for line indentation, line wrap, blank lines, whitespace, naming comments, and docstring

Image by the author. Python logo downloaded from Python.org.

All programming languages have strict formatting rules. If you don’t follow them, the code fails to execute.

For instance, in Java, the if statement must contain parentheses,if (x==true). In Python, a function must start with the word “def”, def cool_function(param): And so on.

However, some parts are left for software developers to decide how to write that doesn’t affect the execution.

For example, I prefer having a whitespace space surrounding the equals sign when assigning a value, x = 1. But I can write the code without whitespace, x=1and it will run as normal.

To avoid inconsistencies in the code and make it more readable, programmers are advised to follow coding format guidelines. According to official Python documentation, let’s look at some of the conventions in Python.

There are more essential recommendations. You should read the style guide for more details.

Indentation

Guideline: 4 spaces per indentation level.

Languages such as Java also has conventions for indentation. But in Python, the guidelines have more weight, as in some cases, the program fails to run if the indentation is incorrect.

Example of code using the right indentation level,

def day_of_week (day):
    match day:
        case 1:
            return "Sunday"
        case 2:
            return "Monday"
        case 3:
            return "Tuesday"
        case 4 | 5 | 6:
            return "Another day of the week"
        case _:
            return "Invalid day"

In the code above, there are 4 spaces between the margin (where defbegins) and the start of the line match day:. The line, case 1: , is indented 4 spaces from the line above.

When 4 spaces per indentation level do not apply

1. Add extra 4 spaces to distinguish function…