Hey everyone, welcome back. Ready to dive into something new?

Today we're tackling

Python tupils. And no, it's not as dry as it sounds.

Not dry at all. In fact, topples are one of those things you might not realize how
much you need them until you really dig in. You know,

like that one tool buried in the back of the drawer that suddenly becomes your go-
to.

Exactly. And the reason they're so handy is that whole immutability thing. Sounds
kind of scary, but it's actually what makes them reliable.

Okay. Got to be honest, you're using word I haven't had my coffee for yet. What is
a tupole in the simplest terms?

All right, so imagine a list, right? Got your items all lined up. A tupil is kind
of like that, but with one key difference. Once you make it, it's S8. Can't change
the items. Can't reorder them. It's fixed.

So like if I had a tupal for the days of the week, I'm stuck with that order. No
swapping Tuesday for Friday when I feel like it.

You got it. And as weird as that sounds, that's where their power comes in. Cuz
sometimes you want that guarantee that your data won't change. Hm. Okay, I'm
intrigued. But give me a real world example. When would I actually want my data to
be unchangeable like that?

Think about something like financial transactions. You wouldn't want the date or
amount to accidentally get modified after the fact, right? Disaster.

Yeah, that'd be bad. So tpples are like this super secure way to store data that
absolutely positively cannot be messed with.

You got it. They're like that safety seal. You know, nobody's tampered with things
because a tpple won't Let them.

Okay, I'm starting to see the appeal. But how do we actually use them? Where do we
even start?

Creating one is super simple. It's all about parenthesis. You'd write it like this.
Days off week. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. See?
Parenthesis instead of those square brackets you use for lists.

Okay, so far so good. What about grabbing stuff from the tpple though? Like if I
want to just pull out Wednesday, how's that work?

Same way you do it with a list through indexing. Python starts counting at zero. So
days off week two would get you Wednesday.

And slicing Our notes mentioned something about slicing tpples. What's that all
about?

Ah, slicing. That's how you grab a chunk of the tipple, not just one item. Like,
want to pull out just the wink days? Slicing's got you covered.

All right. Now, for a curveball, our listeners had some questions about single item
tpples. How did that even work? Seems kind of counterintuitive.
Ah, yeah. The infamous trailing comma. It's a Python quirk, but important one. You
see, to make a single item tpple, you need that comma after your loan element.

So, it looked like five

just to be sure I'm following.

You got it. That comma is basically Python's way of saying, "Yo, this is
intentional. This is a a pupil, even if it's just got one thing in it,

like putting a single cookie on a plate, so it feels fancy." Haha.

Exactly. It's all about being explicit with Python, so it knows exactly what you
mean. Now, let's talk about Tuple Functions. Tuple functions, they might not be as
flashy as some other Python things, but they're super practical. Let's say you've
got, I don't know, an inventory and you're using a for it. You might have some
duplicate items in there. Right.

Right. Like if we're talking about an actual store inventory, you'd have multiples
of the same item probably.

Exactly. So the count function, that's your friend here. It tells you how many
times something shows up in your tpple.

So if I had like apple apple banana in my tpple, count apple would give me back a
two.

You got it. It's great for a quick check instead of you manually counting through a
huge tpple.

Makes sense. And what about finding where an item is in the tpple? It's position
ition.

Ah, you're thinking about index. That's the one that tells you where something is.
The index of its first appearance.

So, in our fruit example, index banana would give me back what? Uh, two.

Yeah.

Since it's the third thing

almost remember Python's zero index is it starts counting from zero, not one. So,
banana would be at index two.

Right. Right. Got to keep those zero indexes straight.

Right.

But we can't change tpples once they're made. So, what good is knowing the index?
It's not like I can swap things around.

Good point. point. But you can do things like combine tupils, concatenate them.

So like adding two tupless together.

Exactly. Use the plus sign and it will make a brand new tpple with all the
elements. Important to remember though the originals those stay untouched.
Immutability remember.
Right. Of course. So we can combine them. But what about comparing tupils? How's
Python figure that out?

It's pretty smart about it actually. Python compares tupils element by element
going one by one. So first element in each tpple, it checks those. If they're
different, it knows right away the couples aren't the same. If they are the same,
it moves on to the second element and so on.

So it's not just if the elements are the same, but their order, too.

Exactly. Got to be a perfect match in the exact same order. Now, this whole time,
I'm sure some listeners are wondering, when would you pick a tpple over a list?
They seem so similar.

Yeah, especially since lists seem way more flexible.

It's all about the right tool for the job, right? If you know your data shouldn't
be changed, think dates of a week or maybe coordinates on a map. A tuple's perfect
for that. There's like that guarantee that security.

Makes sense.

But our notes mentioned you can delete a whole tuple.

You got it. So it's not that you can't get rid of a tpple entirely, just that you
can't tinker with what's inside it.

Okay. So more about managing the whole tipple itself, not so much editing the
contents. But what if you start with a list and then down the line realize, hm, a
tipple would have been better for this. Can you switch between them? So I'm not
stuck if I like accidentally started with a list. but later on realize a tpple is
the way to go.

Not at all. Python's got you covered. Converting between lists and tpples is super
easy.

Music to my ears. How's it work?

Built-in functions to the rescue as usual. You'd use the tpple function. Pretty
straightforward. Let's say you've got my list. You just do my tuple my list and
bam, new tupil, same elements.

So, we're basically just giving those elements a new more permanent home.

Okay, that makes sense.

But we've talked a lot about how to use tpples, but not so much where we'd see this
out in the wild. you know,

yeah,

in actual code, you're right. One common place you'll run into tupils is databases.
Say you get some data back from a database query. Each row of that result could be
a tupil because ideally you don't want to mess with data coming straight from a
database. Right.

Right. Keep it consistent. So the tupil helps ensure nobody's accidentally

modifying the wrong thing.
Exactly. But it goes beyond databases, too. Anything that's like a fixed
collection, months of the year, colors in a rainbow, even stuff like the order of
operations in math. Those are all prime candidates for tupils.

Man, this is really making me rethink how I approach data structures. I use lists
for everything, but tupils have a lot of hidden superpowers.

I'm telling you, yeah,

that immutability, it's not a restriction, it's a feature. When you use it right,
it makes your code way more robust, less prone to bugs.

Love it when that happens. So, as we wrap up this deep dive on Python tupils,
what's the one thing you want listeners to walk away with?

Don't underestimate the power of simplicity. tools might seem basic, but that's
what makes them so reliable. And that immutability thing, seriously, it's a game
changer for writing cleaner, more predictable code.

I would have said it better myself. And for listeners who want to go even deeper
down the rabbit hole, we've got some extra resources linked in the show notes.
There's a really neat example in there about using tupils for key value pairs
that'll really blow your mind,

right?

But until next time, happy coding everyone.