Python List

We’ll learn everything about Python lists, how they are created, slicing of a list,
adding or removing elements from them and so on

Python Lists and Tuples

Python offers a range of compound data types often referred to as sequences. List
is one of the most frequently used and very versatile data types used in Python.

How to create a list?

In Python programming, a list is created by placing all the items (elements) inside
square brackets [] , separated by commas.
It can have any number of items and they may be of different types (integer, float,
string etc.).

# Empty list
My list = []

# List of integers
My list = [1, 2, 3]

# List with mixed data types

My list = [1, "Hello", 3.4]
A list can also have another list as an item. This is called a nested list.

# nested list
My list = ["mouse", [8, 4, 6], ['a']]

How to access elements from a list?

There are various ways in which we can access the elements of a list.

List Index

We can use the index operator [] to access an item in a list. In Python, indices start
at 0. So, a list having 5 elements will have an index from 0 to 4.
Trying to access indexes other than these will raise an Index Error . The index must

be an integer. We can't use float or other types, this will result in Type Error .

Nested lists are accessed using nested indexing.

# List indexing

my list = ['p', 'r', 'o', 'b', 'e']

# Output: p
print(my list[0])

# Output: o

print(my list[2])

# Output: e
print(my list[4])
# Nested List
n_list = ["Happy", [2, 0, 1, 5]]

# Nested indexing
print(n_list[0],[1])

print(my_list[4.0])(n_list[1][3])

# Error! Only integer can be used for indexing

print

Output

p
o
e
a
5
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<string>", line 21, in <module>
TypeError: list indices must be integers or slices, not float

Negative indexing Python allows negative indexing for its sequences. The index
of -1 refers to the last item, -2 to the second last item and so on.

# Negative indexing in lists

my list = ['p','r','o','b','e']

print(my_list[-1])

print(my_list[-5])

When we run the above program, we will get the following output:
e
p

List indexing in
Python

How to slice lists in Python?

We can access a range of items in a list by using the slicing operator : (colon).

# List slicing in Python

['p', 'r', 'o', 'g', 'r', 'a', 'm', 'i', 'z']

Slicing can be best visualized by considering the index to be between the elements
as shown below. So if we want to access a range, we need two indices that will slice
that portion from the list.
 Element Slicing
from a list in Python

How to change or add elements to a list?

Lists are mutable, meaning their elements can be changed unlike string or tuple.
We can use the assignment operator ( = ) to change an item or a range of items.

# correcting mistake values in a list

Odd = [2, 4, 6, 8]

# change the 1st item

odd[0] = 1

print(odd)

# change 2nd to 4th items

Odd[1:4] = [3, 5, 7]

print(odd)

Output

[1, 4, 6, 8]
[1, 3, 5, 7]

We can add one item t

O a list using the append() method or add several items using extend() method.
# Appen`ding and Extending lists in Python
odd = [1, 3, 5]

odd.append(7)

print(odd)

odd.extend([9, 11, 13])

print(odd)

Output

[1, 3, 5, 7]
[1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13]

We can also use + operator to combine two lists. This is also called concatenation.
The * operator repeats a list for the given number of times.

# Concatenating and repeating lists

odd = [1, 3, 5]

print(odd + [9, 7, 5])

print(["re"] * 3)

Output

[1, 3, 5, 9, 7, 5]
['re', 're', 're']

Furthermore, we can insert one item at a desired location by using the

method insert() or insert multiple items by squeezing it into an empty slice of a
list.

# Demonstration of list insert() method

odd = [1, 9]
odd.insert(1,3)
print(odd)

odd[2:2] = [5, 7]

print(odd)

Output

[1, 3, 9]
[1, 3, 5, 7, 9]

How to delete or remove elements from a list?

We can delete one or more items from a list using the keyword del . It can even
delete the list entirely.

# Deleting list items

my_list = ['p', 'r', 'o', 'b', 'l', 'e', 'm']

# delete one item

del my_list[2]

print(my_list)

# delete multiple items

del my_list[1:5]

print(my_list)

# delete entire list

del my_list

# Error: List not defined

print(my_list)

Output

['p', 'r', 'b', 'l', 'e', 'm']

['p', 'm']
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<string>", line 18, in <module>
NameError: name 'my_list' is not defined

We can use remove() method to remove the given item or pop() method to remove
an item at the given index.
The pop() method removes and returns the last item if the index is not provided.
This helps us implement lists as stacks (first in,
last out data structure).
We can also use the clear() method to empty a list.

my_list = ['p','r','o','b','l','e','m']
my_list.remove('p')

# Output: ['r', 'o', 'b', 'l', 'e', 'm']

print(my_list)

# Output: 'o'
print(my_list.pop(1))

# Output: ['r', 'b', 'l', 'e', 'm']

print(my_list)

# Output: 'm'
print(my_list.pop())

# Output: ['r', 'b', 'l', 'e']

print(my_list)

my_list.clear()

# Output: []
print(my_list)

Output

['r', 'o', 'b', 'l', 'e', 'm']

o
['r', 'b', 'l', 'e', 'm']
m
['r', 'b', 'l', 'e']
[]

Finally, we can also delete items in a list by assigning an empty list to a slice of
elements.
>>> my_list = ['p','r','o','b','l','e','m']
>>> my_list[2:3] = []
>>> my_list
['p', 'r', 'b', 'l', 'e', 'm']
>>> my_list[2:5] = []
>>> my_list
['p', 'r', 'm']

Python List Methods

Methods that are available with list objects in Python programming are tabulated
below.

They are accessed as list.method() . Some of the methods have already been used
above.
Python List Methods

append() - Add an element to the end of the list

 extend() - Add all elements of a list to the another list

insert() - Insert an item at the defined index

remove() - Removes an item from the list

pop() - Removes and returns an element at the given index

clear() - Removes all items from the list

index() - Returns the index of the first matched item

count() - Returns the count of the number of items passed as an argument

sort() - Sort items in a list in ascending order

reverse() - Reverse the order of items in the list

copy() - Returns a shallow copy of the list

Some examples of Python list methods:

# Python list methods

my_list = [3, 8, 1, 6, 0, 8, 4]

# Output: 1
print(my_list.index(8))

# Output: 2
print(my_list.count(8))

my_list.sort()

# Output: [0, 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 8]
print(my_list)

my_list.reverse()

# Output: [8, 8, 6, 4, 3, 1, 0]
print(my_list)
Output

1
2
[0, 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 8]
[8, 8, 6, 4, 3, 1, 0]

List Comprehension: Elegant way to create new List

List comprehension is an elegant and concise way to create a new list from an
existing list in Python.

A list comprehension consists of an expression followed by for statement inside

square brackets.
Here is an example to make a list with each item being increasing power of 2.

pow2 = [2 ** x for x in range(10)]

print(pow2)

Output

[1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512]

This code is equivalent to:

pow2 = []
for x in range(10):
pow2.append(2 ** x)

A list comprehension can optionally contain more for or if statements. An

optional if statement can filter out items for the new list. Here are some examples.
>>> pow2 = [2 ** x for x in range(10) if x > 5]
>>> pow2
[64, 128, 256, 512]
>>> odd = [x for x in range(20) if x % 2 == 1]
>>> odd
[1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19]
>>> [x+y for x in ['Python ','C '] for y in ['Language','Programming']]
['Python Language', 'Python Programming', 'C Language', 'C Programming']

Other List Operations in Python

List Membership Test

We can test if an item exists in a list or not, using the keyword in .

my_list = ['p', 'r', 'o', 'b', 'l', 'e', 'm']

y# Output: True
print('p' in my_list)

# Output: False
print('a' in my_list)

# Output: True
print('c' not in my_list)

Output

True
False
True
Iterating Through a List

Using a for loop we can iterate through each item in a list.

for fruit in ['apple','banana','mango']:

print("I like",fruit)

Output

I like apple
I like banana
I like mango