A comprehensive guide on lists in Python
When programming, we always have to deal with data structures. What I mean is that we need to store information somewhere so that we can reuse it later.
Python is a very flexible programming language and gives us the possibility to use different types of data structures.
In this article, we’ll analyze Python lists. So, if you’re a beginner in Python and are searching for a comprehensive guide on lists, then this article is definitely for you.
Here’s what you’ll learn here:
Table of Contents:What is a list in Python?
The top 9 features in Python lists, with examples
How to create a list in Python
Accessing list elements
Modifying the elements of a list
Adding elements to a list
Removing elements from a list
Concatenating lists
Calculating the lenght of a list
Sorting the elements of a list
List comprehension
In Python, a list is a built-in data structure that allows us to store and manipulate data in the form of text or numbers.
Lists store data in an ordered way, meaning that the elements of a list can be accessed by their position.
Lists are also a modifiable kind of data structure, as opposed to tuples.
Finally, lists can also store duplicated values without raising errors.
The best way to learn Python is by putting our fingers on the keyboard and, possibly, solving an actual problem.
So, now we’ll show the 9 top features of Python lists with code examples because, as we’ll see, theory doesn’t have much sense in programming: we just need to code and solve problems.
How to create a list in Python
To create a list, we need to use square brackets:
# Create a simple list
numbers = [1,2,3,"dog","cat"]# Show list
print(numbers)
>>>
[1, 2, 3, 'dog', 'cat']