Lists

There are four collection data types in Python :

List: is a collection which is ordered and changeable(modifiable). Allows duplicate members.

Tuple: is a collection which is ordered and unchangeable or unmodifiable(immutable). Allows
duplicate members.
Set: is a collection which is unordered, un-indexed and unmodifiable, but we can add new items to
the set. Duplicate members are not allowed.
Dictionary: is a collection which is unordered, changeable(modifiable) and indexed. No duplicate
members.

A list is collection of different data types which is ordered and modifiable(mutable). A list can be empty
or it may have different data type items.

How to Create a List

In Python we can create lists in two ways:

Using list built-in function

# syntax
lst = list()

empty_list = list() # this is an empty list, no item in the list

print(len(empty_list)) # 0

Using square brackets, []

# syntax
lst = []

empty_list = [] # this is an empty list, no item in the list

print(len(empty_list)) # 0

Lists with initial values. We use len() to find the length of a list.
 fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon'] # list of fruits
vegetables = ['Tomato', 'Potato', 'Cabbage','Onion', 'Carrot'] # list of vegetables
animal_products = ['milk', 'meat', 'butter', 'yoghurt'] # list of animal products
web_techs = ['HTML', 'CSS', 'JS', 'React','Redux', 'Node', 'MongDB'] # list of web technologies
countries = ['Finland', 'Estonia', 'Denmark', 'Sweden', 'Norway']

# Print the lists and its length

print('Fruits:', fruits)
print('Number of fruits:', len(fruits))
print('Vegetables:', vegetables)
print('Number of vegetables:', len(vegetables))
print('Animal products:',animal_products)
print('Number of animal products:', len(animal_products))
print('Web technologies:', web_techs)
print('Number of web technologies:', len(web_techs))
print('Countries:', countries)
print('Number of countries:', len(countries))

output
Fruits: ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon']
Number of fruits: 4
Vegetables: ['Tomato', 'Potato', 'Cabbage', 'Onion', 'Carrot']
Number of vegetables: 5
Animal products: ['milk', 'meat', 'butter', 'yoghurt']
Number of animal products: 4
Web technologies: ['HTML', 'CSS', 'JS', 'React', 'Redux', 'Node', 'MongDB']
Number of web technologies: 7
Countries: ['Finland', 'Estonia', 'Denmark', 'Sweden', 'Norway']
Number of countries: 5

Lists can have items of different data types

lst = ['Asabeneh', 250, True, {'country':'Finland', 'city':'Helsinki'}] # list containing diffe

Accessing List Items Using Positive Indexing

We access each item in a list using their index. A list index starts from 0. The picture below shows
clearly where the index starts
 fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon']
first_fruit = fruits[0] # we are accessing the first item using its index
print(first_fruit) # banana
second_fruit = fruits[1]
print(second_fruit) # orange
last_fruit = fruits[3]
print(last_fruit) # lemon
# Last index
last_index = len(fruits) - 1
last_fruit = fruits[last_index]

Accessing List Items Using Negative Indexing

Negative indexing means beginning from the end, -1 refers to the last item, -2 refers to the second last
item.

fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon']

first_fruit = fruits[-4]
last_fruit = fruits[-1]
second_last = fruits[-2]
print(first_fruit) # banana
print(last_fruit) # lemon
print(second_last) # mango
Unpacking List Items

lst = ['item1','item2','item3', 'item4', 'item5']

first_item, second_item, third_item, *rest = lst
print(first_item) # item1
print(second_item) # item2
print(third_item) # item3
print(rest) # ['item4', 'item5']

# First Example
fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon','lime','apple']
first_fruit, second_fruit, third_fruit, *rest = fruits
print(first_fruit) # banana
print(second_fruit) # orange
print(third_fruit) # mango
print(rest) # ['lemon','lime','apple']
# Second Example about unpacking list
first, second, third,*rest, tenth = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
print(first) # 1
print(second) # 2
print(third) # 3
print(rest) # [4,5,6,7,8,9]
print(tenth) # 10
# Third Example about unpacking list
countries = ['Germany', 'France','Belgium','Sweden','Denmark','Finland','Norway','Iceland','Esto
gr, fr, bg, sw, *scandic, es = countries
print(gr)
print(fr)
print(bg)
print(sw)
print(scandic)
print(es)

Slicing Items from a List

Positive Indexing: We can specify a range of positive indexes by specifying the start, end and
step, the return value will be a new list. (default values for start = 0, end = len(lst) - 1 (last item),
step = 1)
 fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon']
all_fruits = fruits[0:4] # it returns all the fruits
# this will also give the same result as the one above
all_fruits = fruits[0:] # if we don't set where to stop it takes all the rest
orange_and_mango = fruits[1:3] # it does not include the first index
orange_mango_lemon = fruits[1:]
orange_and_lemon = fruits[::2] # here we used a 3rd argument, step. It will take every 2cnd item

Negative Indexing: We can specify a range of negative indexes by specifying the start, end and
step, the return value will be a new list.

fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon']

all_fruits = fruits[-4:] # it returns all the fruits
orange_and_mango = fruits[-3:-1] # it does not include the last index,['orange', 'mango']
orange_mango_lemon = fruits[-3:] # this will give starting from -3 to the end,['orange', 'mango
reverse_fruits = fruits[::-1] # a negative step will take the list in reverse order,['lemon', 'm

Modifying Lists
List is a mutable or modifiable ordered collection of items. Lets modify the fruit list.

fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon']

fruits[0] = 'avocado'
print(fruits) # ['avocado', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon']
fruits[1] = 'apple'
print(fruits) # ['avocado', 'apple', 'mango', 'lemon']
last_index = len(fruits) - 1
fruits[last_index] = 'lime'
print(fruits) # ['avocado', 'apple', 'mango', 'lime']

Checking Items in a List

Checking an item if it is a member of a list using in operator. See the example below.

fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon']

does_exist = 'banana' in fruits
print(does_exist) # True
does_exist = 'lime' in fruits
print(does_exist) # False
Adding Items to a List
To add item to the end of an existing list we use the method append().

# syntax
lst = list()
lst.append(item)

fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon']

fruits.append('apple')
print(fruits) # ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon', 'apple']
fruits.append('lime') # ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon', 'apple', 'lime']
print(fruits)

Inserting Items into a List

We can use insert() method to insert a single item at a specified index in a list. Note that other items
are shifted to the right. The insert() methods takes two arguments:index and an item to insert.

# syntax
lst = ['item1', 'item2']
lst.insert(index, item)

fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon']

fruits.insert(2, 'apple') # insert apple between orange and mango
print(fruits) # ['banana', 'orange', 'apple', 'mango', 'lemon']
fruits.insert(3, 'lime') # ['banana', 'orange', 'apple', 'lime', 'mango', 'lemon']
print(fruits)

Removing Items from a List

The remove method removes a specified item from a list

# syntax
lst = ['item1', 'item2']
lst.remove(item)
 fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon', 'banana']
fruits.remove('banana')
print(fruits) # ['orange', 'mango', 'lemon', 'banana'] - this method removes the first occurren
fruits.remove('lemon')
print(fruits) # ['orange', 'mango', 'banana']

Removing Items Using Pop

The pop() method removes the specified index, (or the last item if index is not specified):

# syntax
lst = ['item1', 'item2']
lst.pop() # last item
lst.pop(index)

fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon']

fruits.pop()
print(fruits) # ['banana', 'orange', 'mango']

fruits.pop(0)
print(fruits) # ['orange', 'mango']

Removing Items Using Del

The del keyword removes the specified index and it can also be used to delete items within index
range. It can also delete the list completely

# syntax
lst = ['item1', 'item2']
del lst[index] # only a single item
del lst # to delete the list completely
 fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon', 'kiwi', 'lime']
del fruits[0]
print(fruits) # ['orange', 'mango', 'lemon', 'kiwi', 'lime']
del fruits[1]
print(fruits) # ['orange', 'lemon', 'kiwi', 'lime']
del fruits[1:3] # this deletes items between given indexes, so it does not delete the item w
print(fruits) # ['orange', 'lime']
del fruits
print(fruits) # This should give: NameError: name 'fruits' is not defined

Clearing List Items

The clear() method empties the list:

# syntax
lst = ['item1', 'item2']
lst.clear()

fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon']

fruits.clear()
print(fruits) # []

Copying a List
It is possible to copy a list by reassigning it to a new variable in the following way: list2 = list1. Now,
list2 is a reference of list1, any changes we make in list2 will also modify the original, list1. But there
are lots of case in which we do not like to modify the original instead we like to have a different copy.
One of way of avoiding the problem above is using copy().

# syntax
lst = ['item1', 'item2']
lst_copy = lst.copy()

fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon']

fruits_copy = fruits.copy()
print(fruits_copy) # ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon']
Joining Lists
There are several ways to join, or concatenate, two or more lists in Python.

Plus Operator (+)

# syntax
list3 = list1 + list2

positive_numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
zero = [0]
negative_numbers = [-5,-4,-3,-2,-1]
integers = negative_numbers + zero + positive_numbers
print(integers) # [-5, -4, -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon']
vegetables = ['Tomato', 'Potato', 'Cabbage', 'Onion', 'Carrot']
fruits_and_vegetables = fruits + vegetables
print(fruits_and_vegetables ) # ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon', 'Tomato', 'Potato', 'Cabb

Joining using extend() method

The extend() method allows to append list in a list. See the example below.

# syntax
list1 = ['item1', 'item2']
list2 = ['item3', 'item4', 'item5']
list1.extend(list2)
 num1 = [0, 1, 2, 3]
num2= [4, 5, 6]
num1.extend(num2)
print('Numbers:', num1) # Numbers: [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
negative_numbers = [-5,-4,-3,-2,-1]
positive_numbers = [1, 2, 3,4,5]
zero = [0]

negative_numbers.extend(zero)
negative_numbers.extend(positive_numbers)
print('Integers:', negative_numbers) # Integers: [-5, -4, -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon']
vegetables = ['Tomato', 'Potato', 'Cabbage', 'Onion', 'Carrot']
fruits.extend(vegetables)
print('Fruits and vegetables:', fruits ) # Fruits and vegetables: ['banana', 'orange', 'mango',

Counting Items in a List

The count() method returns the number of times an item appears in a list:

# syntax
lst = ['item1', 'item2']
lst.count(item)

fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon']

print(fruits.count('orange')) # 1
ages = [22, 19, 24, 25, 26, 24, 25, 24]
print(ages.count(24)) # 3

Finding Index of an Item

The index() method returns the index of an item in the list:

# syntax
lst = ['item1', 'item2']
lst.index(item)
 fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon']
print(fruits.index('orange')) # 1
ages = [22, 19, 24, 25, 26, 24, 25, 24]
print(ages.index(24)) # 2, the first occurrence

Reversing a List
The reverse() method reverses the order of a list.

# syntax
lst = ['item1', 'item2']
lst.reverse()

fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon']

fruits.reverse()
print(fruits) # ['lemon', 'mango', 'orange', 'banana']
ages = [22, 19, 24, 25, 26, 24, 25, 24]
ages.reverse()
print(ages) # [24, 25, 24, 26, 25, 24, 19, 22]

Sorting List Items

To sort lists we can use sort() method or sorted() built-in functions. The sort() method reorders the list
items in ascending order and modifies the original list. If an argument of sort() method reverse is equal
to true, it will arrange the list in descending order.

sort(): this method modifies the original list

# syntax
lst = ['item1', 'item2']
lst.sort() # ascending
lst.sort(reverse=True) # descending

Example:
 fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon']
fruits.sort()
print(fruits) # sorted in alphabetical order, ['banana', 'lemon', 'mango', 'ora
fruits.sort(reverse=True)
print(fruits) # ['orange', 'mango', 'lemon', 'banana']
ages = [22, 19, 24, 25, 26, 24, 25, 24]
ages.sort()
print(ages) # [19, 22, 24, 24, 24, 25, 25, 26]

ages.sort(reverse=True)
print(ages) # [26, 25, 25, 24, 24, 24, 22, 19]

sorted(): returns the ordered list without modifying the original list
Example:

fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon']

print(sorted(fruits)) # ['banana', 'lemon', 'mango', 'orange']
# Reverse order
fruits = ['banana', 'orange', 'mango', 'lemon']
fruits = sorted(fruits,reverse=True)
print(fruits) # ['orange', 'mango', 'lemon', 'banana']