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Beginners - Lists

last updated 2 years ago by gerard #

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Lists

Python knows a number of compound data types, used to group together other values. The most versatile is the list, which can be written as a list of comma-separated values (items) between square brackets. List items need not all have the same type.

>>> a = ['spam', 'eggs', 100, 1234]
>>> a
['spam', 'eggs', 100, 1234]

Like string indices, list indices start at 0, and lists can be sliced, concatenated and so on:

>>> a[0]
'spam'
>>> a[3]
1234
>>> a[-2]
100
>>> a[1:-1]
['eggs', 100]
>>> a[:]          # Copies the list
['spam', 'eggs', 100, 1234]
>>> a[:2] + ['bacon', 2*2]
['spam', 'eggs', 'bacon', 4]
>>> 3*a[:3] + ['Boo!']
['spam', 'eggs', 100, 'spam', 'eggs', 100, 'spam', 'eggs', 100, 'Boo!']

Unlike strings, which are immutable, it is possible to replace individual elements of a list:

>>> a
['spam', 'eggs', 100, 1234]
>>> a[2] = a[2] + 23
>>> a
['spam', 'eggs', 123, 1234]

Assignment to slices is also possible, and this can even change the size of the list:

>>> # Replace some items:
... a[0:2] = [1, 12]
>>> a
[1, 12, 123, 1234]
>>> # Remove some:
... a[0:2] = []
>>> a
[123, 1234]
>>> # Insert some:
... a[1:1] = ['bletch', 'xyzzy']
>>> a
[123, 'bletch', 'xyzzy', 1234]
>>> a[:0] = a     # Insert (a copy of) itself at the beginning
>>> a
[123, 'bletch', 'xyzzy', 1234, 123, 'bletch', 'xyzzy', 1234]
>>> a[:] = []     # Clear the list: replace all items with an empty list
>>> a
[]

The built-in function len() also applies to lists:

>>> len(a)
8

Lists can be nested:

>>> q = [2, 3]
>>> p = [1, q, 4]
>>> len(p)
3
>>> p[1]
[2, 3]
>>> p[1][0]
2
>>> p[1].append('xtra')     # See section 5.1
>>> p
[1, [2, 3, 'xtra'], 4]
>>> q
[2, 3, 'xtra']

Note that in the last example, p[1] and q really refer to the same object! We'll come back to object semantics later.

More on Lists

The list data type has some more methods. Here are all of the methods of list objects:

append(x) Add an item to the end of the list; equivalent to a[len(a):] = [x].
extend(L) Extend the list by appending all the items in the given list; equivalent to a[len(a):] = L.
insert(i, x) Insert an item at a given position. The first argument is the index of the item before which to insert, so a.insert(0, x) inserts at the front of the list, and a.insert(len(a), x) is equivalent to a.append(x).
remove(x) Remove the first item from the list whose value is x. It is an error if there is no such item.
pop([i]) Remove the item at the given position in the list, and return it. If no index is specified, a.pop() removes and returns the last item in the list. The item is also removed from the list. (The square brackets around the i in the method signature denote that the parameter is optional, not that you should type square brackets at that position. You will see this notation frequently in the Python Library Reference.)
index(x) Return the index in the list of the first item whose value is x. It is an error if there is no such item.
count(x) Return the number of times x appears in the list.
sort() Sort the items of the list, in place.
reverse() Reverse the order of the items of the list, in place.

An example that uses most of the list methods:

>>> a = [66.25, 333, 333, 1, 1234.5]
>>> print a.count(333), a.count(66.25), a.count('x')
2 1 0
>>> a.insert(2, -1)
>>> a.append(333)
>>> a
[66.25, 333, -1, 333, 1, 1234.5, 333]
>>> a.index(333)
1
>>> a.remove(333)
>>> a
[66.25, -1, 333, 1, 1234.5, 333]
>>> a.reverse()
>>> a
[333, 1234.5, 1, 333, -1, 66.25]
>>> a.sort()
>>> a
[-1, 1, 66.25, 333, 333, 1234.5]
>>> b = [5,6,7]
>>> a.extend(b)
>>> a
[-1, 1, 66.25, 333, 333, 1234.5, 5, 6, 7]

Note that the sort() and reverse() methods don't return anything. If you want to get a sorted copy of a list, without modifying the original, you can use the sorted() function instead:

>>> a = [5, 8, 3]
>>> sorted(a)
[3, 5, 8]
>>> a
[5, 8, 3]

Using Lists as Stacks

The list methods make it very easy to use a list as a stack, where the last item added is the first item retrieved (last-in, first-out). To add an item to the top of the stack, use append(). To retrieve an item from the top of the stack, use pop() without an explicit index. For example:

>>> stack = [3, 4, 5]
>>> stack.append(6)
>>> stack.append(7)
>>> stack
[3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
>>> stack.pop()
7
>>> stack
[3, 4, 5, 6]
>>> stack.pop()
6
>>> stack.pop()
5
>>> stack
[3, 4]

Using Lists as Queues

You can also use a list conveniently as a queue, where the first item added is the first item retrieved (first-in, first-out). To add an item to the back of the queue, use append(). To retrieve an item from the front of the queue, use pop() with 0 as the index. For example:

>>> queue = ["Eric", "John", "Michael"]
>>> queue.append("Terry")           # Terry arrives
>>> queue.append("Graham")          # Graham arrives
>>> queue.pop(0)
'Eric'
>>> queue.pop(0)
'John'
>>> queue
['Michael', 'Terry', 'Graham']

The `del` statement

There is a way to remove an item from a list given its index instead of its value: the del statement. Unlike the pop()) method which returns a value, the del keyword is a statement and can also be used to remove slices from a list (which we did earlier by assignment of an empty list to the slice). For example:

>>> a = [-1, 1, 66.25, 333, 333, 1234.5]
>>> del a[0]
>>> a
[1, 66.25, 333, 333, 1234.5]
>>> del a[2:4]
>>> a
[1, 66.25, 1234.5]
>>> del a[:]
>>> a
[]

del can also be used to delete entire variables:

>>> del a

Referencing the name a hereafter is an error (at least until another value is assigned to it). We'll find other uses for del later.

Tuples and Sequences

We saw that lists and strings have many common properties, such as indexing and slicing operations. They are two examples of sequence data types. Since Python is an evolving language, other sequence data types may be added. There is also another standard sequence data type: the tuple.

A tuple consists of a number of values separated by commas, for instance:

>>> t = 12345, 54321, 'hello!'
>>> t[0]
12345
>>> t
(12345, 54321, 'hello!')
>>> # Tuples may be nested:
... u = t, (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
>>> u
((12345, 54321, 'hello!'), (1, 2, 3, 4, 5))

As you see, on output tuples are always enclosed in parentheses, so that nested tuples are interpreted correctly; they may be input with or without surrounding parentheses, although often parentheses are necessary anyway (if the tuple is part of a larger expression).

Tuples have many uses. For example: (x, y) coordinate pairs, employee records from a database, etc. Tuples, like strings, are immutable: it is not possible to assign to the individual items of a tuple (you can simulate much of the same effect with slicing and concatenation, though). It is also possible to create tuples which contain mutable objects, such as lists.

A special problem is the construction of tuples containing 0 or 1 items: the syntax has some extra quirks to accommodate these. Empty tuples are constructed by an empty pair of parentheses; a tuple with one item is constructed by following a value with a comma (it is not sufficient to enclose a single value in parentheses). Ugly, but effective. For example:

>>> empty = ()
>>> singleton = 'hello',    # <-- note trailing comma
>>> len(empty)
0
>>> len(singleton)
1
>>> singleton
('hello',)

The statement t = 12345, 54321, 'hello!' is an example of tuple packing: the values 12345, 54321 and 'hello!' are packed together in a tuple. The reverse operation is also possible:

>>> x, y, z = t

This is called, appropriately enough, sequence unpacking. Sequence unpacking requires the list of variables on the left to have the same number of items as the length of the sequence. Note that multiple assignment is really just a combination of tuple packing and sequence unpacking!

There is a small bit of asymmetry here: packing multiple values always creates a tuple, and unpacking works for any sequence.

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