Lists¶
List is one of the most commonly used data structure in Python. It contains a list of items separated by commas and enclosed within square brackets. A list can be created easily as shown below:
num_list = [3, 6, 2, 10] # only numbers
word_list = ['hello', 'python', 'programming'] # only string
mixed_list = ['a', 3.5, 6, 'b', 'c'] # combination of string and numbers
Accessing Values in a List¶
Use square bracket to access the value in a list. The first item in a list is accessed with index 0. See examples below:
num_list = [4, 12, 'a', 'b', 5.0]
first_item = num_list[0] # value: 4, first item in the list
last_item = num_list[4] # value: 5.0, last item in the list
last_item = num_list[-1] # use -1 to access elements starting from the right
first_two_items = num_list[0:2] # value: [4, 12] Note: This is called list slicing
items_in_middle = num_list[1:-1] # value: [12, 'a', 'b']
invalid_index = num_list[5] # error, list is 0-indexed
Updating a List¶
You can change the value of existing items, add new item or remove existing item(s) from a list.
>>> a = [1, 2, 3, 4]
>>> a[1] = 5 # change the 2nd item from 2 to 5
>>> a
[1, 5, 3, 4]
>>> a.remove(3) # remove the number 3
>>> a
[1, 5, 4]
>>> a.pop() # remove last item
4
>>> a
[1, 5]
>>> a.append(10) # add the number 10 to the end of the list
>>> a
[1, 5, 10]
Other useful list operations¶
Python includes a few useful list functions and methods.
>>> x = [2, 6, 3, 1, 10, 5]
>>> len(x) # get number of items in the list
6
>>> x.sort() # sort the list in ascending order
>>> x
[1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10]
>>> x.reverse() # reverse the order of the elements in the list
>>> x
[10, 6, 5, 3, 2, 1]
>>> max(x) # get the maximum value in the list
10
>>> min(x) # get the minimum value in the list
1
>>> x.count(5) # get the number of 5 in the list
1
List Comprehensions¶
List comprehension offers a concise way of creating a new list from existing sequences.
>>> x= [1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ]
>>> y = [ i*3 for i in x ] # create a new list with each element multiplied by 3.
>>> y
[3, 6, 9, 12, 15]
>>> even = [ i for i in range(1, 10) if i%2==0 ] # create a list with even numbers
>>> even
[2, 4, 6, 8]
Summary of list operations¶
Each example in the table below assumes a list ‘s’ with initial elements 1 to 5, and a list ‘t’ with elements ‘a’ and ‘b’, when applicable.
>>> s = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ] >>> t = ['a', 'b' ]
Operation Explanation Example Output on s s[i] = x item i of s is replaced by x s[2] = 0 [1, 2, 0, 4, 5] s[i:j] = t slice of s from i to j is replaced by the contents of the iterable t s[1:5] = t [1, ‘a’, ‘b’] del s[i:j] same as s[i:j] = [] del s[2:4] [1, 2, 5] s[i:j:k] = t the elements of s[i:j:k] are replaced by those of t with step k s[1:4:2] = t [1, ‘a’, 3, ‘b’, 5] del s[i:j:k] removes the elements of s[i:j:k] from the list with step k del s[0:5:2] [2, 4] s.append(x) same as s[len(s):len(s)] = [x] s.append(t) [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, [‘a’, ‘b’]] s.extend(x) same as s[len(s):len(s)] = x s.extend(t) [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ‘a’, ‘b’] s.count(x) return number of occurrences of x in s s[0] = 3; s.count(3) 2 s.index(x[,i[,j]]) return smallest k such that s[k] == x and i<=k<j s.index(3) 2 s.insert(i, x) same as s[i:i] = [x] s.insert(2, 6) [1, 2, 6, 3, 4, 5] s.pop([i]) same as x = s[i]; del s[i]; return x s.pop(2) 3 s.remove(x) same as del s[s.index(x)] s.remove(3) [1, 2, 4, 5] s.reverse() reverses the items of s in place s.reverse() [5, 4, 3, 2, 1] s.sort([cmp[, key[, reverse ]]]) sort the items of s in place s[0] = 4; s.sort() [2, 3, 4, 4, 5]
See also
Ready for some practice? Test your understanding at PySchools: Lists.