Lists are used to store multiple items in a single variable.

Python language offers a range of compound data types often referred to as sequences. 

List is one of the most frequently used and very versatile or changeable data types used in Python.

A list is created by placing all the items (elements) inside square brackets [], separated by commas. It can have any number of items and they may be of different types (integer, float, string etc.).

We can use the index operator [] to access an item in a list. In Python, indices start at 0. So, a list having 5 elements will have an index from 0 to 4.

Trying to access indexes other than these will raise an IndexError. The index must be an integer. We can't use float or other types, this will result in TypeError.

Negative indexing:

Python allows negative indexing for its sequences. The index of -1 refers to the last item, -2 to the second last item and so on. 

We can access a range of items in a list by using the slicing operator :(colon).

colors = ['red', 'blue', 'green']

print(colors[0])    ## red

print(colors[2])    ## green

print(len(colors))  ## 3

Assignment with an = on lists does not make a copy. Instead, assignment makes the two variables point to the one list in memory.

b = colors   ## Does not copy the list

The "empty list" is just an empty pair of brackets [ ]. The '+' works to append two lists, so [1, 2] + [3, 4] yields [1, 2, 3, 4] (this is just like + with strings).

 

List Methods

Here are some other common list methods.

list.append(elem) -- adds a single element to the end of the list. Common error: does not return the new list, just modifies the original.

list.insert(index, elem) -- inserts the element at the given index, shifting elements to the right.

list.extend(list2) adds the elements in list2 to the end of the list. Using + or += on a list is similar to using extend().

list.index(elem) -- searches for the given element from the start of the list and returns its index. Throws a ValueError if the element does not appear (use "in" to check without a ValueError).

list.remove(elem) -- searches for the first instance of the given element and removes it (throws ValueError if not present)

list.sort() -- sorts the list in place (does not return it). (The sorted() function shown later is preferred.)

list.reverse() -- reverses the list in place (does not return it)

list.pop(index) -- removes and returns the element at the given index. Returns the rightmost element if index is omitted (roughly the opposite of append()). 

Examples-1:

list = ['larry', 'curly', 'moe']

list.append('shemp')         ## append elem at end

print(list)

list.insert(0, 'xxx')        ## insert elem at index 0

print(list)

list.extend(['yyy', 'zzz'])  ## add list of elems at end

print(list)  ## ['xxx', 'larry', 'curly', 'moe', 'shemp', 'yyy', 'zzz']

print(list.index('curly'))    ## 2

list.remove('curly')         ## search and remove that element

list.pop(1)                  ## removes and returns 'larry'

print(list)  ## ['xxx', 'moe', 'shemp', 'yyy', 'zzz']