Introduction to lists

So far we have worked with individual pieces of data like the string hello, then with variables we saw how to give this data a name with variables. Well in this lesson, we'll see how we can group data together with lists.

Creating a list

A list is our first form of a collection. A collection is just a way of grouping data together, and lists certainly accomplish this. For example, let's consider the top cities to travel to according to Travel and Leisure. We'll see it below, but we must stay focused on Python and data!

Travel Locations

1. Solta
2. Greenville
3. Buenos Aires
4. Los Cabos
5. Walla Walla Valley
6. Marakesh
7. Albuquerque
8. Archipelago Sea
9. Iguazu Falls
10. Salina Island
11. Toronto
12. Pyeongchang

Ok, and this is how we express this in Python.

['Solta', 'Greenville', 'Buenos Aires', 'Los Cabos', 'Walla Walla Valley', 'Marakesh', 'Albuquerque', 'Archipelago Sea', 'Iguazu Falls', 'Salina Island', 'Toronto', 'Pyeongchang']

['Solta',
 'Greenville',
 'Buenos Aires',
 'Los Cabos',
 'Walla Walla Valley',
 'Marakesh',
 'Albuquerque',
 'Archipelago Sea',
 'Iguazu Falls',
 'Salina Island',
 'Toronto',
 'Pyeongchang']

So we indicate that we are initializing a list by placing a bracket, [ (located above of the return key), and end the list with a closing bracket ']'. To separate each item in the list, called an element, we place a comma.

['Croatia', 'USA', 'Argentina', 'Mexico', 'USA', 'Morocco', 'New Mexico', 'Finland', 'Argentina', 'Italy', 'Canada', 'South Korea']

['Croatia',
 'USA',
 'Argentina',
 'Mexico',
 'USA',
 'Morocco',
 'New Mexico',
 'Finland',
 'Argentina',
 'Italy',
 'Canada',
 'South Korea']

And of course, we can set each list equal to variable so that we can name each list.

top_travel_cities = ['Solta', 'Greenville', 'Buenos Aires', 'Los Cabos', 'Walla Walla Valley', 'Marakesh', 'Albuquerque', 'Archipelago Sea', 'Iguazu Falls', 'Salina Island', 'Toronto', 'Pyeongchang']

top_travel_cities

['Solta',
 'Greenville',
 'Buenos Aires',
 'Los Cabos',
 'Walla Walla Valley',
 'Marakesh',
 'Albuquerque',
 'Archipelago Sea',
 'Iguazu Falls',
 'Salina Island',
 'Toronto',
 'Pyeongchang']

countries_of_top_cities = ['Croatia', 'USA', 'Argentina', 'Mexico', 'USA', 'Morocco', 'New Mexico', 'Finland', 'Argentina', 'Italy', 'Canada', 'South Korea']

Accessing Elements of Lists

Now our top_travel_cities list is contains multiple elements. And just like we numbered the elements of a list with text:

1. Solta
2. Greenville
3. Buenos Aires

A list in Python also assigns a number to each element.

top_travel_cities

['Solta',
 'Greenville',
 'Buenos Aires',
 'Los Cabos',
 'Walla Walla Valley',
 'Marakesh',
 'Albuquerque',
 'Archipelago Sea',
 'Iguazu Falls',
 'Salina Island',
 'Toronto',
 'Pyeongchang']

top_travel_cities[0]

'Solta'

In the above line we are referencing a list and then using the brackets to access specific elements of our list. We access elements in a list with the index, and there is a separate index for each element in the list. It begins at the number zero, increases for every element thereafter.

So to access the second element we write top_travel_cities[1], and the third element is top_travel_cities[2]:

top_travel_cities[2]

'Buenos Aires'

How would we access the last element, well we could count all of the elements in the list, and Pyeongchang would just be one less than that. Or we can ask Python to start from the back in move back one.

top_travel_cities[-1]

'Pyeongchang'

And we can move back as many as we want.

top_travel_cities[-2]

'Toronto'

Accessing Multiple Elements

Now imagine that we don't want to access just one element of a list, but multiple elements at once. Python allows us to do that as well.

top_travel_cities[0:2]

['Solta', 'Greenville']

Ok, now to access elements of a list, inside of our brackets we are placing two numbers separated by a colon. The first number indicates the index of the first element we want returned.

The second number could represent the number of elements we want returned back, or maybe it represents the stopping index of the elements that we are retrieving. Looking at our top_travel_cities it could be either.

top_travel_cities

['Solta',
 'Greenville',
 'Buenos Aires',
 'Los Cabos',
 'Walla Walla Valley',
 'Marakesh',
 'Albuquerque',
 'Archipelago Sea',
 'Iguazu Falls',
 'Salina Island',
 'Toronto',
 'Pyeongchang']

So let's try a different experiment to answer our question.

top_travel_cities[4:5]

['Walla Walla Valley']

Ok, so that second number is not representing the number of elements we want returned. Instead it must be used to indicate the index of the first element not selected.

top_travel_cities[4:6]

['Walla Walla Valley', 'Marakesh']

This operation is called the slice. So we can say we are slicing the elements with indices 4 and 5 in the line above. Note that even though we are slicing elements, our list remains in tact.

top_travel_cities

['Solta',
 'Greenville',
 'Buenos Aires',
 'Los Cabos',
 'Walla Walla Valley',
 'Marakesh',
 'Albuquerque',
 'Archipelago Sea',
 'Iguazu Falls',
 'Salina Island',
 'Toronto',
 'Pyeongchang']

Changing elements

Now that we read and select certain elements from lists, let's work on changing these lists. To add a new element to a list, we can use the append method.

top_travel_cities.append('San Antonio')

Now let's take another look at top_travel_cities.

top_travel_cities

['Solta',
 'Greenville',
 'Buenos Aires',
 'Los Cabos',
 'Walla Walla Valley',
 'Marakesh',
 'Albuquerque',
 'Archipelago Sea',
 'Iguazu Falls',
 'Salina Island',
 'Toronto',
 'Pyeongchang',
 'San Antonio']

You will see 'San Antonio' included in the list. Now what if we accidentally add 'San Antonio' a second time to our list. No worries, we can remove the last element from a list with the pop method.

top_travel_cities.pop()

'San Antonio'

top_travel_cities

['Solta',
 'Greenville',
 'Buenos Aires',
 'Los Cabos',
 'Walla Walla Valley',
 'Marakesh',
 'Albuquerque',
 'Archipelago Sea',
 'Iguazu Falls',
 'Salina Island',
 'Toronto',
 'Pyeongchang']

Now if we want to change an element from the middle of the list, we can access and then reassign that element. So for example, let's change 'Walla Walla Valley' to the number 4.

top_travel_cities[4]

'Walla Walla Valley'

top_travel_cities[4] = 4

top_travel_cities

['Solta',
 'Greenville',
 'Buenos Aires',
 'Los Cabos',
 4,
 'Marakesh',
 'Albuquerque',
 'Archipelago Sea',
 'Iguazu Falls',
 'Salina Island',
 'Toronto',
 'Pyeongchang']

And our list is now changed. It's not a sensible list right now, so let's change it back.

top_travel_cities[4] = 'Walla Walla Valley'

And our list is alright.

top_travel_cities

['Solta',
 'Greenville',
 'Buenos Aires',
 'Los Cabos',
 'Walla Walla Valley',
 'Marakesh',
 'Albuquerque',
 'Archipelago Sea',
 'Iguazu Falls',
 'Salina Island',
 'Toronto',
 'Pyeongchang']

Summary

In this section we saw how to associate data together in a collection, called a list. A list is similar to a list in the real world - it implies the data has some connection, and that it has an order to it. We initialize a list with the brackets, [], and separate each element by a comma. To access elements from a list, we use the bracket accessor followed by the index of the element we want to retrieve. And our indices began at zero and increase from there. To add a new element to the end of the list we use the append method, and to remove an element from the end of a list we use pop. We can change elements anywhere between by first accessing the elements and then reassigning them.