Lists and Tuples in Python

Author:
Sam Shepards
Updated date:
Dec 21, 2020

I'm a software developer with a great interest in data analysis and statistics.

Operations on Lists

We have seen earlier how Lists can be created and initialized. It is possible to initialize a list with nothing in it and add items later. It is possible to have heterogeneous items inside the list. It is also possible to have a list encapsulated in another list. When a list contains another list as one of its members it is called a nested list.

It is possible to access the elements in a list using positive or negative indexing. Negative indexing returns the nth element from the last while positive indexing returns the nth element from the front.

#!/usr/bin/python3
 
# declaring empty list
test = []
# list of integers
primeNums = [2,3,5,7]
# list of mixed type values
studentData = ['john', "smith", 29, 415312, 97.89]
#nested list
invoice = [100.00, ["FD20", "FLAT10", "SURPRISE40"], 20, ["No Coupons Applied"]]
 
print("Empty list test : ", test)
print("Prime Numbers list : ", primeNums)
print("Student Data: ", studentData)
print("****Invoice*** ")
print("Total Bill Amount : $", invoice[0])
print("Available coupons : ", invoice[1])
print("Applied Coupons : ", invoice[3])
print("Sales Tax : $",invoice[2])
print("second last element in studentData: ", studentData[-2]) # example for negative indexing
print("Third Element in studentData: ", studentData[2]) # indexing starts from 0. So, nth item is found at n-1th location.

Output for the above program will be:

Empty list test : [] Prime Numbers list : [2, 3, 5, 7] Student Data: ['john', 'smith', 29, 415312, 97.89] ****Invoice*** Total Bill Amount : $ 100.0 Available coupons : ['FD20', 'FLAT10', 'SURPRISE40'] Applied Coupons : ['No Coupons Applied'] Sales Tax : $ 20 second last element in studentData: 415312 Third Element in studentData: 29

Updating and Deleting List Items

It is possible to update or delete the values in a list by specifying the location where changes need to go. Alternatively, lists have built-in methods that can be used to achieve this.

List.append(item) – appends an item to the end of the list.
List.extend(anotherList) – appends contents of "anotherList" to the existing list.
List.remove(item) – removes the item from the list.
List.insert(index,data) – inserts the data at given index.
List.pop() – removes the last element from the list. The way this function works is similar to pop operation on a stack.

The following example demonstrates how these functions can be used.

#!/usr/bin/python
nums = [2,3,4,5]
print("initial value of nums List")
print(nums)
nums[0:] = [1,3,5,7]        #alters whole list as index 0 is given as starting point   
print("Altered Value using slice operator [0:] ") 
print(nums)
nums.append(9)
print("value after appending 9 : ", nums)
nums.remove(1)
print("value after removing 1 : ", nums)
nums.insert(0, 2)
print("value after inserting 2 : ", nums)
top = nums.pop()
print("popped value : ", top, ". value after popping : ", nums)
testList = [11,13,17,19]
nums.extend(testList)
print("value after appending testList : ", nums)

Output for the above code will be:

initial value of nums List [2, 3, 4, 5] Altered Value using slice operator [0:] [1, 3, 5, 7] value after appending 9 : [1, 3, 5, 7, 9] value after removing 1 : [3, 5, 7, 9] value after inserting 2 : [2, 3, 5, 7, 9] popped value : 9 . value after popping : [2, 3, 5, 7] value after appending testList : [2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19]

Important Methods of List

There are some more methods that can be handy while handling lists in Python.

len(list) – Gives the length of the list.
list(givenTuple) – converts a given tuple to list
min(list) – returns the minimum value stored in the list.
max(list) – returns the maximum value stored in the list.
List.count(givenObj) – returns the frequency of occurrence of the "givenObj" item in the list
List.reverse() – reverses the order in which objects are placed in the list.
List.sort() – sorts objects in a list.
List.index(givenObj) – performs a binary search and returns the index of the first occurrence of "givenObj" in the list.

The following example demonstrates how these functions can be used.

#!/usr/bin/python
nums = [2,3,4,5,7,3]
print("initial value of nums List")
print(nums)
print("length of nums = ", len(nums))
print("first occurrence of 3 at index ", nums.index(3))
print("minimum value stored in list = ", min(nums))
print("maximum value stored in list = ", max(nums))
print("number of times 3 occurs in the list =", nums.count(3))
print("sorted list = ", nums.sort())
print("reversed list = ", nums.reverse())
testTuple = (10, 20, 30)
print("given tuple : ", testTuple)
newList = list(testTuple)
newList.append(1)
print("newList value after appending 1 = ", newList)

Output for the above code will be:

initial value of nums List [2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 3] length of nums = 6 first occurrence of 3 at index 1 minimum value stored in list = 2 maximum value stored in list = 7 number of times 3 occurs in the list = 2 sorted list = None reversed list = None given tuple : (10, 20, 30) newList value after appending 1 = [10, 20, 30, 1]

Operations on Tuples

Since Tuples are immutable, unlike lists, they don’t have specifically built-in functions that enable a user to modify them. But there are certain functions that are supported by tuples which are similar to len(), min(), max(), and tuple()

Len() – gives the length of the tuple
Min() – gives the minimum element in the tuple
Max() – gives the maximum value in the tuple
Tuple(givenList) – converts the given List to a tuple