Python List

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car1 = 'Honda'
car2 = 'Toyota'
car3 = 'Chevrolet'
car4 = 'Jeep'
car5 = 'Ford'

cars = ['Honda', 'Toyota', 'Chevrolet', 'Jeep', 'Ford']
print(cars)

output:
['Honda', 'Toyota', 'Chevrolet', 'Jeep', 'Ford']

cars1 = list(('Honda', 'Toyota', 'Chevrolet', 'Jeep', 'Ford'))
print(cars1)

Output :
['Honda', 'Toyota', 'Chevrolet', 'Jeep', 'Ford']

Accessing list elements

If we have n numbers of elements in a list, index/position of the first element will be 0 and last element will be n-1.

So, if we want to get the first car name, we can simply use cars[0] . Let us print the first car name:

cars = ['Honda', 'Toyota', 'Chevrolet', 'Jeep', 'Ford']
print(cars[0])

Output:
Honda

Print the second car name:

cars = ['Honda', 'Toyota', 'Chevrolet', 'Jeep', 'Ford']
print(cars[1])
Output:
Toyota

Print the last or 5th car name:

cars = ['Honda', 'Toyota', 'Chevrolet', 'Jeep', 'Ford']
print(cars[4])
Output:
Ford

Example:

myList = [1,3,4,'Honda', 1.3, 'Jeep']
print(myList[4])

Output:
1.3

Find the Index of a particular list item

index() method is used to find the index of a particular list item.

cars1 = list(('Honda', 'Toyota', 'Chevrolet', 'Jeep', 'Ford'))
print(cars1.index('Ford'))

Output: 4

Finding the length of the list

To find the number of elements in a list or the length of the list, we can use len() method.

cars = ['Honda', 'Toyota', 'Chevrolet', 'Jeep', 'Ford']
print(len(cars))

Output:
5

Looping through a list

It’s a very common operation to loop through a list and accessing the items in it. We will learn more about looping while studying different types of looping.
Example: In this example we are going to fetch all the list elements using for loop

abcList = ['d', 'c', 'a', 'e', 'b']
for item in abcList:
 print(item)

Output:
d
c
a
e
b

Changing a value in the list

If we want to change a particular element in a list, we have to use index of the element:For updating the second index value in our cars list: cars[1] = ‘Audi’

cars = ['Honda', 'Toyota', 'Chevrolet', 'Jeep', 'Ford']
cars[1] = 'Audi'
print(cars)

Output:
['Honda', 'Audi', 'Chevrolet', 'Jeep', 'Ford']

Adding a new element in a list

Adding a new element at the end of the list:

append() method is used to add/append an element at the end of the list.

cars = ['Honda', 'Toyota', 'Chevrolet', 'Jeep', 'Ford']
cars.append("BMW")
print(cars)

Output:
['Honda', 'Audi', 'Chevrolet', 'Jeep', 'Ford', 'BMW']

Adding a new element at a particular position of the list:

insert() method is used to add a new element at a particular position of the list. For inserting a new element in the 3rd position:

cars = ['Honda', 'Toyota', 'Chevrolet', 'Jeep', 'Ford']
cars.insert(2,'Mercedes-Benz')
print(cars)

Output:
['Honda', 'Audi', 'Mercedes-Benz', 'Chevrolet', 'Jeep', 'Ford', 'BMW']

Delete an element from the list

Delete a particular element from a list:

remove() method is used to delete a particular element from a list.

Example: Deleting ‘Jeep’ from our car list:

cars = ['Honda', 'Audi', 'Mercedes-Benz', 'Chevrolet', 'Jeep', 'Ford', 'BMW']
cars.remove('Jeep')

Output:
['Honda', 'Audi', 'Mercedes-Benz', 'Chevrolet', 'Ford', 'BMW']

Deleting an element from a particular index of the list:

pop() method is used to delete a particular index element from a list if we provide the index value, otherwise it will delete the last element of the list.

cars = ['Honda', 'Audi', 'Mercedes-Benz', 'Chevrolet', 'Ford', 'BMW']
cars.pop(1)
print(cars)


Output:
['Honda', 'Mercedes-Benz', 'Chevrolet', 'Ford', 'BMW']

We can also use del keyword to delete an element from a particular index:

Example:

cars = ['Honda', 'Mercedes-Benz', 'Chevrolet', 'Ford', 'BMW']
del cars[1]
print(cars)

Output:
['Honda', 'Chevrolet', 'Ford', 'BMW']

Example:

cars = ['Honda', 'Chevrolet', 'Ford', 'BMW']
del cars

Output:
NameError: name 'cars' is not defined

Clearing a list

To delete all the list items or make the list empty, we can use clear() method

Example:

abcList1 = ['d', 'c', 'a', 'e', 'b']
abcList1.clear()
print(abcList1)

Output:
[]

Copying a list

we copy a list to make a new list .

copy() method to copy a list:

cars = ['Honda', 'Chevrolet', 'Ford', 'BMW']
carsNew = cars.copy()
print(carsNew)

Output:
['Honda', 'Chevrolet', 'Ford', 'BMW']

list() method to copy a list:

cars = ['Honda', 'Chevrolet', 'Ford', 'BMW']
carsNewUpdated = list(cars)
print(carsNewUpdated )

Output:
['Honda', 'Chevrolet', 'Ford', 'BMW']

Count list elements

If you want to count how many times a list element exists in the list, you can use count() function

cars1 = list(('Honda', 'Toyota', 'Chevrolet', 'Jeep', 'Ford', 'Jeep'))
print(cars1.count('Jeep'))

Output: 2

Sorting a list

We can sort the items of a list in a specific order ( Ascending or Descending).

sort() method can be used to sort the items of a list.
Example: Sort a list in ascending order

abcList = ['d', 'c', 'a', 'e', 'b']
abcList.sort()
print("After sorting: ", abcList)

Output:
After sorting:  ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e']

Example : Sort a list in descending order

abcList = ['d', 'c', 'a', 'e', 'b']
abcList.sort(reverse=True)
print("After sorting in descending order: ", abcList)

Output: 
After sorting in descending order:  ['e', 'd', 'c', 'b', 'a']

For sorting a list, you can also use python built-in sorted() method.
Example: Sort in ascending order

abcList = ['d', 'c', 'a', 'e', 'b']
print("Sorting ascending order using sorted: ", sorted(abcList))

Output:
Sorting ascending order using sorted:  ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e']

Example : Sort in descending order

abcList = ['d', 'c', 'a', 'e', 'b']
sortedList = sorted(abcList,reverse=True)
print("Sorting descending order using sorted: ", sortedList)

Output:
Sorting descending order using sorted:  ['e', 'd', 'c', 'b', 'a']

Reversing a list

If you only want to reverse a list, you can use reverse() method

Example: 
abcList1 = ['d', 'c', 'a', 'e', 'b']
abcList1.reverse()
print('Reversed list: ', abcList1)

Output:
Reversed list:  ['b', 'e', 'a', 'c', 'd']

In summary, commonly used Python list methods are:

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