Hello readers, in this tutorial, we will learn about List in Python programming language.
1. Introduction
The list data structure in python programming is a –
- A data structure that can store multiple data at once (in other words it is a comma separate items between the square brackets and the items can be of the different or same type)
- It is an ordered collection
- Each element in a list have a distinct place in the sequence and will not eradicate the duplicates
- It is mutable in nature (i.e. we can add and remove the entries
1.1 Setting up Python
If someone needs to go through the Python installation on Windows, please watch this link. To start with this tutorial, I am hoping that readers at present have the python installed.
2. List in Python Programming Tutorial
I am using JetBrains PyCharm as my preferred IDE. Readers are free to choose the IDE of their choice.
2.1 How to create a list and accessing values?
Creating a list is as simple as putting different comma-separated values in the square brackets. To access values in the list we can either use the loop or the print(…) function directly. Let us understand this with the help of a code snippet.
Creating a List and Accessing it
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 | # Creating a car listcars = [ 'BMW', 'Audi', 'Mercedes', 'Honda', 'Toyota', 'Ferrari', 'Tesla']# Accessing the values from the list# Approach1 -print('Approach #1= ', cars)print('=====')# Approach2 -print('Approach #2')for car in cars: print('Car name=', car) |
If everything goes well the following output will be shown in the IDE console.
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 | Approach #1= ['BMW', 'Audi', 'Mercedes', 'Honda', 'Toyota', 'Ferrari', 'Tesla']=====Approach #2Car name= BMWCar name= AudiCar name= MercedesCar name= HondaCar name= ToyotaCar name= FerrariCar name= Tesla |
2.2 Adding an element to List
To add an element to a list we have two methods in python programming i.e. –
- The
append(…)method which will add an element at the end - The
insert(…)method which will add an element at a given index
Let us understand this with the help of a code snippet.
Adding an element
1 2 3 4 5 | # 3. Adding an element to the list and accessing it.cars.append('Tata') # Add an element at the end of the list# Add an element at the given index (& shifts the elements greater than index one step to the right)cars.insert(2, 'Kia') # (Insert 'Kia' at position no. 2)print('New cars list= ', cars) |
If everything goes well the following output will be shown in the IDE console.
1 | New cars list= ['BMW', 'Audi', 'Kia', 'Mercedes', 'Honda', 'Toyota', 'Ferrari', 'Tesla', 'Tata'] |
2.3 Deleting an element from List
To remove an element from a list we have two methods in python programming i.e.
- The
remove(…)method will search the first occurrence of the given element in the list and remove it - The
pop(…)method will remove the last element of the list
Let us understand this with the help of a code snippet.
Adding an element
1 2 3 4 5 6 | # 4. Removing an element from the list.cars.remove('Mercedes')print('remove() method = ', cars)cars.pop()print('pop() method = ', cars) |
If everything goes well the following output will be shown in the IDE console.
1 2 | remove() method = ['BMW', 'Audi', 'Kia', 'Honda', 'Toyota', 'Ferrari', 'Tesla', 'Tata']pop() method = ['BMW', 'Audi', 'Kia', 'Honda', 'Toyota', 'Ferrari', 'Tesla'] |
2.4 Some basic functions
- The
len(…)method prints the length of the list - The
sort(…)method sorts the elements of a list - The
reverse(…)method reverses the list
Let us understand this with the help of a code snippet.
Basic functions
01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 | # 5. Basic functions over list# 5(a). Print length of a listprint('Length of list= ', len(cars))# 5(b). Sort the elements of a listcars.sort()print('Sorted list= ', cars)# 5(c). Reversed the listcars.reverse()print('Reversed list= ', cars) |
If everything goes well the following output will be shown in the IDE console.
1 2 3 4 5 | Length of list= 7Sorted list= ['Audi', 'BMW', 'Ferrari', 'Honda', 'Kia', 'Tesla', 'Toyota']Reversed list= ['Toyota', 'Tesla', 'Kia', 'Honda', 'Ferrari', 'BMW', 'Audi'] |
That is all for this tutorial and I hope the article served you with whatever you were looking for. Happy Learning and do not forget to share!
3. Summary
In this tutorial, we learned about the List data structure in python programming.
You can download the sample class from the Downloads section.
4. Download the Project
This was an example of a List data structure in python programming.
You can download the full source code of this example here: Python List Example
