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The important characteristics of Python lists are as follows:

● Lists are ordered.

● Lists can contain any arbitrary objects.
● List elements can be accessed by index.
● Lists can be nested to arbitrary depth.
● Lists are mutable.
● Lists are dynamic.

● The [:] syntax works for lists. However, there is an important difference
between how this operation works with a list and how it works with a string.
If s is a string, s[:] returns a reference to the same object:
● >>>

>>> s = 'foobar'
>>> s[:]
'foobar'
>>> s[:] is s
True

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●
Conversely, if a is a list, a[:] returns a new object that is a copy of a:
● >>>

>>> a = ['foo', 'bar', 'baz', 'qux', 'quux', 'corge']

>>> a[:]
['foo', 'bar', 'baz', 'qux', 'quux', 'corge']
>>> a[:] is a
● False

Python Sorting

The easiest way to sort is with the sorted(list) function, which takes a list and returns a
new list with those elements in sorted order. The original list is not changed.

a = [5, 1, 4, 3]
print(sorted(a)) ## [1, 3, 4, 5]
print(a) ## [5, 1, 4, 3]

It's most common to pass a list into the sorted() function, but in fact it can take as input
any sort of iterable collection. The older list.sort() method is an alternative detailed
below. The sorted() function seems easier to use compared to sort(), so I recommend
using sorted().

The sorted() function can be customized through optional arguments. The sorted()
optional argument reverse=True, e.g. sorted(list, reverse=True), makes it sort
backwards.

strs = ['aa', 'BB', 'zz', 'CC']

print(sorted(strs)) ## ['BB', 'CC', 'aa', 'zz'] (case
sensitive)
print(sorted(strs, reverse=True)) ## ['zz', 'aa', 'CC',
'BB']

Custom Sorting With key=

For more complex custom sorting, sorted() takes an optional "key=" specifying a "key"
function that transforms each element before comparison. The key function takes in 1
value and returns 1 value, and the returned "proxy" value is used for the comparisons
within the sort.

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For example with a list of strings, specifying key=len (the built in len() function) sorts the
strings by length, from shortest to longest. The sort calls len() for each string to get the
list of proxy length values, and then sorts with those proxy values.

strs = ['ccc', 'aaaa', 'd', 'bb']

print(sorted(strs, key=len)) ## ['d', 'bb', 'ccc', 'aaaa']

As another example, specifying "str.lower" as the key function is a way to force the
sorting to treat uppercase and lowercase the same:

## "key" argument specifying str.lower function to use for

sorting
print(sorted(strs, key=str.lower)) ## ['aa', 'BB', 'CC',
'zz']

You can also pass in your own MyFn as the key function, like this:

## Say we have a list of strings we want to sort by the last

letter of the string.
strs = ['xc', 'zb', 'yd' ,'wa']

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## Write a little function that takes a string, and returns

its last letter.
## This will be the key function (takes in 1 value, returns 1
value).
def MyFn(s):
return s[-1]

## Now pass key=MyFn to sorted() to sort by the last letter:

print(sorted(strs, key=MyFn)) ## ['wa', 'zb', 'xc', 'yd']

For more complex sorting like sorting by last name then by first name, you can use the
itemgetter or attrgetter functions like:

from operator import itemgetter

# (first name, last name, score) tuples

grade = [('Freddy', 'Frank', 3), ('Anil', 'Frank', 100),
('Anil', 'Wang', 24)]
sorted(grade, key=itemgetter(1,0))
# [('Anil', 'Frank', 100), ('Freddy', 'Frank', 3), ('Anil',
'Wang', 24)]

sorted(grade, key=itemgetter(0,-1)) # Aha! -1 sorts by last

name in reverse order.
#[('Anil', 'Wang', 24), ('Anil', 'Frank', 100), ('Freddy',
'Frank', 3)]

sort() method

As an alternative to sorted(), the sort() method on a list sorts that list into ascending
order, e.g. list.sort(). The sort() method changes the underlying list and returns None, so
use it like this:

alist.sort() ## correct
alist = blist.sort() ## Incorrect. sort() returns None

The above is a very common misunderstanding with sort() -- it *does not return* the
sorted list. The sort() method must be called on a list; it does not work on any
enumerable collection (but the sorted() function above works on anything). The sort()

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method predates the sorted() function, so you will likely see it in older code. The sort()
method does not need to create a new list, so it can be a little faster in the case that the
elements to sort are already in a list.

Tuples

A tuple is a fixed size grouping of elements, such as an (x, y) co-ordinate. Tuples are like
lists, except they are immutable and do not change size (tuples are not strictly
immutable since one of the contained elements could be mutable). Tuples play a sort of
"struct" role in Python -- a convenient way to pass around a little logical, fixed size
bundle of values. A function that needs to return multiple values can just return a tuple
of the values. For example, if I wanted to have a list of 3-d coordinates, the natural
python representation would be a list of tuples, where each tuple is size 3 holding one
(x, y, z) group.

To create a tuple, just list the values within parenthesis separated by commas. The
"empty" tuple is just an empty pair of parenthesis. Accessing the elements in a tuple is
just like a list -- len(), [ ], for, in, etc. all work the same.

tuple = (1, 2, 'hi')

print(len(tuple)) ## 3
print(tuple[2]) ## hi
tuple[2] = 'bye' ## NO, tuples cannot be changed
tuple = (1, 2, 'bye') ## this works

To create a size-1 tuple, the lone element must be followed by a comma.

tuple = ('hi',) ## size-1 tuple

It's a funny case in the syntax, but the comma is necessary to distinguish the tuple from
the ordinary case of putting an expression in parentheses. In some cases you can omit
the parenthesis and Python will see from the commas that you intend a tuple.

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Assigning a tuple to an identically sized tuple of variable names assigns all the
corresponding values. If the tuples are not the same size, it throws an error. This feature
works for lists too.

(x, y, z) = (42, 13, "hike")

print(z) ## hike
(err_string, err_code) = Foo() ## Foo() returns a length-2
tuple

List Comprehensions (optional)

List comprehensions are a more advanced feature which is nice for some cases but is
not needed for the exercises and is not something you need to learn at first (i.e. you can
skip this section). A list comprehension is a compact way to write an expression that
expands to a whole list. Suppose we have a list nums [1, 2, 3, 4], here is the list
comprehension to compute a list of their squares [1, 4, 9, 16]:

nums = [1, 2, 3, 4]

squares = [ n * n for n in nums ] ## [1, 4, 9, 16]

The syntax is [ expr for var in list ] -- the for var in list looks like a
regular for-loop, but without the colon (:). The expr to its left is evaluated once for each
element to give the values for the new list. Here is an example with strings, where each
string is changed to upper case with '!!!' appended:

strs = ['hello', 'and', 'goodbye']

shouting = [ s.upper() + '!!!' for s in strs ]

## ['HELLO!!!', 'AND!!!', 'GOODBYE!!!']

You can add an if test to the right of the for-loop to narrow the result. The if test is
evaluated for each element, including only the elements where the test is true.

## Select values <= 2

nums = [2, 8, 1, 6]
small = [ n for n in nums if n <= 2 ] ## [2, 1]

## Select fruits containing 'a', change to upper case

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fruits = ['apple', 'cherry', 'banana', 'lemon']

afruits = [ s.upper() for s in fruits if 'a' in s ]
## ['APPLE', 'BANANA']

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