What is an iterable object and how to work with it in Python?

An Iterable object in Python is an object that can be looped over in a for loop. It implements the __iter__() method, which returns an iterator.

An iterator is an object that implements the __next__() method, which returns the next element in the sequence and raises a StopIteration exception when the elements are exhausted.

Example:

my_list = [1, 2, 3]

# my_list is iterable
for item in my_list:
    print(item)

# You can get an iterator
iterator = iter(my_list)
print(next(iterator))  # 1
print(next(iterator))  # 2
print(next(iterator))  # 3
# next(iterator) now will raise StopIteration

Iterable objects are widely used for data processing, sequence generation, and in data streams in machine learning.