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    List in Python

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    Nishanth
    The document discusses various operations that can be performed on lists in Python. It covers how to create and initialize lists, add/insert, remove, and slice elements in lists. It also discusses searching lists to find elements and using list operators like + and * to combine or repeat lists. Lists in Python are similar to arrays but are more flexible and support a variety of operations to manage and manipulate list elements.

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    List in Python

    Uploaded by

    Nishanth
    87 views9 pages
    The document discusses various operations that can be performed on lists in Python. It covers how to create and initialize lists, add/insert, remove, and slice elements in lists. It also discusses searching lists to find elements and using list operators like + and * to combine or repeat lists. Lists in Python are similar to arrays but are more flexible and support a variety of operations to manage and manipulate list elements.

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    The document discusses various operations that can be performed on lists in Python. It covers how to create and initialize lists, add/insert, remove, and slice elements in lists. It also discusses searching lists to find elements and using list operators like + and * to combine or repeat lists. Lists in Python are similar to arrays but are more flexible and support a variety of operations to manage and manipulate list elements.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    87 views9 pages

    List in Python

    Uploaded by

    Nishanth
    The document discusses various operations that can be performed on lists in Python. It covers how to create and initialize lists, add/insert, remove, and slice elements in lists. It also discusses searching lists to find elements and using list operators like + and * to combine or repeat lists. Lists in Python are similar to arrays but are more flexible and support a variety of operations to manage and manipulate list elements.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    of 9

    Nishanth T

    16bss031

    List and List operations in Python

    Lists in Python language can be compared to arrays in Java but they are different
    in many other aspects. Lists are used in almost every program written in Python.

    1. Create a Python List

    Defining a List in Python is easy. You just need to provide name of the list and
    initialize it with values. Following is an example of a List in Python :

    >>> myList = ["The", "earth", "revolves", "around", "sun"]

    >>> myList

    ['The', 'earth', 'revolves', 'around', 'sun']

    So you can see that a list named ‘myList’ was created with some elements.

    Lists in python are zero indexed. This means, you can access individual elements in
    a list just as you would do in an array. Here is an example :

    >>> myList[0]

    'The'

    >>> myList[4]

    'sun'
    Lists cannot be accessed beyond the rightmost index boundary. Here is an
    example :

    >>> myList[5]

    Traceback (most recent call last):

    File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>

    IndexError: list index out of range

    So we see that when we tried to access myList index 5, an error was thrown saying
    that this index is out of range.

    But, on the other hand, if you try to access value at a negative index then values
    from the rightmost index can be accessed backwards. Here is an example:

    >>> myList[-1]

    'sun'

    So we see that index -1 was translated into index ‘4’ and corresponding value was
    produced in output.

    If you are new to Python, you should start by writing a Python hello world
    program, and understanding Python variables and strings.
    2. Add Elements to a List

    One can use the method insert, append and extend to add elements to a List.

    The insert method expects an index and the value to be inserted. Here is an
    example of insert :

    >>> myList.insert(0,"Yes")

    >>> myList

    ['Yes', 'The', 'earth', 'revolves', 'around', 'sun']

    So we see the value ‘yes’ was inserted at the index 0 in the list and all the other
    elements were shifted accordingly.

    The append method can take one or more elements as input and appends them
    into the list. Here is an example :

    >>> myList.append(["a", "true"])

    >>> myList

    ['Yes', 'The', 'earth', 'revolves', 'around', 'sun', ['a', 'true']]

    So, the two values were appended towards the end of the list. Note that whether
    we add one element or multiple elements to the list, if we have used append then
    they will be added as a single element only. This can be proven if we try to check
    the length of myList now :

    >>> len(myList)
    7

    So we see that though we added two elements but they are counted as a single
    element (or a sub-list) in myList.

    The other method that can be used to add elements to list is extend. Like append,
    it also expects one or more values as input. But, unlike append, all the elements
    are added as individual elements. Here is an example :

    >>> myList.extend(["statement", "for", "sure"])

    >>> myList

    ['Yes', 'The', 'earth', 'revolves', 'around', 'sun', ['a', 'true'], 'statement', 'for', 'sure']

    >>> len(myList)

    10

    So we see that each element got added as a separate element towards the end of
    the list.

    3. Slice Elements from a List

    Python also allows slicing of the lists. You can access a part of complete list by
    using index range. There are various ways through which this can be done. Here
    are some examples :

    If it is required to access a sub-list from index 1 to index 3 then it can be done in


    following way:
    >>> myList[1:4]

    ['The', 'earth', 'revolves']

    Note that the index 4 was passed instead of 3 because if we pass index range x:y
    then values up to index y-1 are printed.

    Now, if it is required to access first ‘n’ elements of the list, then there is no need to
    provide index ‘0’, only the value of ‘n’ is required. Here is an example :

    >>> myList[:4]

    ['Yes', 'The', 'earth', 'revolves']

    So we see that first three elements were accessed.

    Similarly, if last ‘n’ elements are required to be accessed then only starting index is
    required. Here is an example :

    >>> myList[4:]

    ['around', 'sun', ['a', 'true'], 'statement', 'for', 'sure']

    So we see that all the elements beginning from index 4 till end of the list were
    displayed.

    If neither starting index, nor the ending index is provided then complete list is
    displayed. Here is an example :
    >>> myList[:]

    ['Yes', 'The', 'earth', 'revolves', 'around', 'sun', ['a', 'true'], 'statement', 'for', 'sure']

    4. Search the Lists and find Elements

    Lists can easily be searched for values using the index method that expects a value
    that is to be searched. The output is the index at which the value is kept.

    Here is an example :

    Here we try to search the list for value ‘revolves’.

    >>> myList.index("revolves")

    So we see that the corresponding index was displayed in the output.

    If some value is not found then an error is displayed. Here is an example :

    >>> myList.index("a")

    Traceback (most recent call last):

    File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>

    ValueError: 'a' is not in list

    Here is how you can search a sub list :


    >>> myList.index(["a", "true"])

    If it is desired to just whether an element is present in a list, it can be done in


    following way :

    >>> "sun" in myList

    True

    So we see that ‘True’ was returned as ‘sun’ was present in the list.

    5. Delete Elements from the List

    Python provides the remove method through which we can delete elements from
    a list. It expects the value which is required to be deleted.

    Here are some examples :

    >>> myList

    ['Yes', 'The', 'earth', 'revolves', 'around', 'sun', ['a', 'true'], 'statement', 'for', 'sure']

    >>> myList.remove("Yes")

    >>> myList

    ['The', 'earth', 'revolves', 'around', 'sun', ['a', 'true'], 'statement', 'for', 'sure']

    >>> myList.remove("statement")

    >>> myList
    ['The', 'earth', 'revolves', 'around', 'sun', ['a', 'true'], 'for', 'sure']

    Here we see that remove can be used to easily delete elements in list.

    Here is how a sub list can be deleted :

    >>> myList.remove(["a", "true"])

    >>> myList

    ['The', 'earth', 'revolves', 'around', 'sun', 'for', 'sure']

    So we see that the sub list was deleted from the original list.

    If it is required to access the last element and then to delete it, this can be done
    through pop method.

    >>> myList.pop()

    'sure'

    >>> myList

    ['The', 'earth', 'revolves', 'around', 'sun', 'for']

    So we see that the value was displayed and deleted simultaneously.

    6. Python List Operators

    Python allows to use mathematical operators like +, * etc to be used with lists.
    Here are some examples :

    >>> myList

    ['The', 'earth', 'revolves', 'around', 'sun', 'for']

    >>> myList = myList + ["sure"]

    >>> myList

    ['The', 'earth', 'revolves', 'around', 'sun', 'for', 'sure']

    >>> myList += ["."]

    >>> myList

    ['The', 'earth', 'revolves', 'around', 'sun', 'for', 'sure', '.']

    >>> myList *= 2

    >>> myList

    ['The', 'earth', 'revolves', 'around', 'sun', 'for', 'sure', '.', 'The', 'earth', 'revolves',
    'around', 'sun', 'for', 'sure', '.']

    So we see that through + operator elements could be added to the list and
    through * operator we can add the complete list repeatedly towards the end.

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