Python – Tuples
A tuple is a sequence of immutable Python objects. Tuples are sequences, just like lists. The
main difference between the tuples and the lists is that the tuples cannot be changed unlike
lists. Tuples use parentheses, whereas lists use square brackets.
Creating a tuple is as simple as putting different comma-separated values. Optionally, you can
put these comma-separated values between parentheses also. For example-
tup1 = ('physics', 'chemistry', 1997, 2000)
tup2 = (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 )
tup3 = "a", "b", "c", "d"
The empty tuple is written as two parentheses containing nothing.
tup1 = ()
To write a tuple containing a single value you have to include a comma, even though there is
only one value.
tup1 = (50,)
Like string indices, tuple indices start at 0, and they can be sliced, concatenated, and so on.
Accessing Values in Tuples
To access values in tuple, use the square brackets for slicing along with the index or indices
to obtain the value available at that index. For example-
#!/usr/bin/python3
tup1 = ('physics', 'chemistry', 1997, 2000)
tup2 = (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
print ("tup1[0]: ", tup1[0])
print ("tup2[1:5]: ", tup2[1:5])
When the above code is executed, it produces the following result-
tup1[0]: physics
tup2[1:5]: [2, 3, 4, 5]
Mr. Gautam Kumar
Assistant Professor
MMICTBM
Updating Tuples
Tuples are immutable, which means you cannot update or change the values of tuple
elements. You are able to take portions of the existing tuples to create new tuples as the
following example demonstrates.
#!/usr/bin/python3
tup1 = (12, 34.56)
tup2 = ('abc', 'xyz')
# Following action is not valid for tuples
# tup1[0] = 100; #tuple is immutable
# So let's create a new tuple as follows
tup3 = tup1 + tup2
print (tup3)
When the above code is executed, it produces the following result-
(12, 34.56, 'abc', 'xyz')
Delete Tuple Elements
Removing individual tuple elements is not possible. There is, of course, nothing wrong with
putting together another tuple with the undesired elements discarded.
#!/usr/bin/python3
tup = ('physics', 'chemistry', 1997, 2000);
print (tup)
del tup
print "After deleting tup : "
print (tup)
To explicitly remove an entire tuple, just use the del statement. For example-This produces
the following result.
Mr. Gautam Kumar
Assistant Professor
MMICTBM
Note: An exception is raised. This is because after del tup, tuple does not exist any more.
('physics', 'chemistry', 1997, 2000)
After deleting tup :
Traceback (most recent call last): File "test.py", line 9, in <module>
NameError: name 'tup' is not defined
Mr. Gautam Kumar
Assistant Professor
MMICTBM
Basic Tuples Operations
Tuples respond to the + and * operators much like strings; they mean concatenation and
repetition here too, except that the result is a new tuple, not a string.
In fact, tuples respond to all of the general sequence operations we used on strings in the
previous chapter.
Python Expression Results Description
len((1, 2, 3)) 3 Length
(1, 2, 3) + (4, 5, 6) (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) Concatenation
('Hi!',) * 4 ('Hi!', 'Hi!', 'Hi!', 'Hi!') Repetition
3 in (1, 2, 3) True Membership
for x in (1,2,3) : print (x, end=' ') 123 Iteration
Indexing, Slicing, and Matrixes
Since tuples are sequences, indexing and slicing work the same way for tuples as they do for
strings, assuming the following input-
T= ('C++', 'Java', 'Python')
Python Expression Results Description
T[2] 'Python' Offsets start at zero
T[-2] 'Java' Negative: count from the right
T[1:] ('Java', 'Python') Slicing fetches sections
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Assistant Professor
MMICTBM
No Enclosing Delimiters
No enclosing Delimiters is any set of multiple objects, comma-separated, written without
identifying symbols, i.e., brackets for lists, parentheses for tuples, etc., default to tuples, as
indicated in these short examples.
Built-in Tuple Function
Python includes the following tuple functions-
SN Function with Description
1 cmp(tuple1, tuple2)
No longer available in Python 3.
2 len(tuple)
Gives the total length of the tuple.
3 max(tuple)
Returns item from the tuple with max value.
4 min(tuple)
Returns item from the tuple with min value.
5 tuple(seq)
Converts a list into tuple.
Tuple len() Method
Description
The len() method returns the number of elements in the tuple.
Syntax
Following is the syntax for len() method-
len(tuple)
Parameters
tuple - This is a tuple for which number of elements to be counted.
Return Value
This method returns the number of elements in the tuple.
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Assistant Professor
MMICTBM
Example
The following example shows the usage of len() method.
#!/usr/bin/python3
tuple1, tuple2 = (123, 'xyz', 'zara'),(456, 'abc')
print ("First tuple length : ", len(tuple1))
print ("Second tuple length : ", len(tuple2))
When we run above program, it produces following result-
First tuple length :3
Second tuple length :2
Tuple max() Method
Description
The max() method returns the elements from the tuple with maximum value.
Syntax
Following is the syntax for max() method-
max(tuple)
Parameters
tuple - This is a tuple from which max valued element to be returned.
Return Value
This method returns the elements from the tuple with maximum value.
Example
The following example shows the usage of max() method.
#!/usr/bin/python3
tuple1, tuple2 = ('maths', 'che', 'phy', 'bio'), (456, 700, 200)
print ("Max value element : ", max(tuple1))
print ("Max value element : ", max(tuple2))
When we run the above program, it produces the following result-
Max value element : phy
Max value element : 700
Mr. Gautam Kumar
Assistant Professor
MMICTBM
Tuple min() Method
Description
The min() method returns the elements from the tuple with minimum value.
Syntax
Following is the syntax for min() method-
min(tuple)
Parameters
tuple - This is a tuple from which min valued element is to be returned.
Return Value
This method returns the elements from the tuple with minimum value.
Example
The following example shows the usage of min() method.
#!/usr/bin/python3
tuple1, tuple2 = ('maths', 'che', 'phy', 'bio'), (456, 700, 200)
print ("min value element : ", min(tuple1))
print ("min value element : ", min(tuple2))
When we run the above program, it produces the following result-
min value element : bio
min value element : 200
Tuple tuple() Method
Description
The tuple() method converts a list of items into tuples.
Syntax
Following is the syntax for tuple() method-
tuple( seq )
Parameters
seq - This is a tuple to be converted into tuple.
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Assistant Professor
MMICTBM
Return Value
This method returns the tuple.
Example
The following example shows the usage of tuple() method.
#!/usr/bin/python3
list1= ['maths', 'che', 'phy','bio']
tuple1=tuple(list1)
print ("tuple elements : ", tuple1)
When we run the above program, it produces the following result-
tuple elements : ('maths', 'che', 'phy', 'bio')
Program to show tuple operation:
Code :
tup1= ('BCA', 'MCA', 2020, 2022)
tup2 = (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 )
tup3 = "a", "b", "c", "d"
print(tup1)
print(tup2)
print(tup3)
tup4=() # Empty Tuple
# Accessing Values of Tuple
print(tup1[0])
print(tup2[2:])
print('Operations on Tuples')
print('1--> To find length of tuple')
print('Length of {}, {}, {} is {}, {},
{}'.format(tup1,tup2,tup3,len(tup1),len(tup2),len(tup3)))
print('2--> Concatenation of tuples')
print(tup1+tup2+tup3)
print('3--> Repetition of tuple')
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Assistant Professor
MMICTBM
x=int(input('Enter how many times you want tuple should be repeated :- '))
print(tup1*x)
print(tup2*x)
print('4--> Checking membershp of element in tuple')
y=int(input('Enter The Element to check whether it is present in tuple or not :- '))
print(y in tup2)
print('5--> Iteration Operation on tuple')
for i in tup1:
print(i,end=' ')
print()
print('6--> Getting maximum value from tuple')
print('Max value in Tuple 2 is :- ',max(tup2))
print()
print('7--> Getting minimum value from tuple')
print('Min value in Tuple 2 is :- ',min(tup2))
print('IMMUTABILITY OF TUPLE')
tup2[2]=100 # TypeError: 'tuple' object does not support item assignment
Mr. Gautam Kumar
Assistant Professor
MMICTBM
