NPTEL MOOC
PROGRAMMING,
DATA STRUCTURES AND
ALGORITHMS IN PYTHON
Week 3, Lecture 2
Madhavan Mukund, Chennai Mathematical Institute
http://www.cmi.ac.in/~madhavan
Lists
Lists are mutable
list1 = [1,3,5,6]
list2 = list1
list1[2] = 7
list1 is now [1,3,7,6]
So is list2
Lists
On the other hand
list1 = [1,3,5,6]
list2 = list1
list1 = list1[0:2] + [7] + list1[3:]
list1 is now [1,3,7,6]
list2 remains [1,3,5,6]
Concatenation produces a new list
Extending a list
Adding an element to a list, in place
list1 = [1,3,5,6]
list2 = list1
list1.append(12)
list1 is now [1,3,5,6,12]
list2 is also [1,3,5,6,12]
Extending a list …
On the other hand
list1 = [1,3,5,6]
list2 = list1
list1 = list1 + [12]
list1 is now [1,3,5,6,12]
list2 remains [1,3,5,6]
Concatenation produces a new list
List functions
list1.append(v) — extend list1 by a single
value v
list1.extend(list2) — extend list1 by a list of
values
In place equivalent of list1 = list1 + list2
list1.remove(x) — removes first occurrence of x
Error if no copy of x exists in list1
A note on syntax
list1.append(x) rather than append(list1,x)
list1 is an object
append() is a function to update the object
x is an argument to the function
Will return to this point later
Further list manipulation
Can also assign to a slice in place
list1 = [1,3,5,6]
list2 = list1
list1[2:] = [7,8]
list1 and list2 are both [1,3,7,8]
Can expand/shrink slices, but be sure you know
what you are doing!
list1[2:] = [9,10,11] produces
[1,3,9,10,11]
list1[0:2] = [7] produces [7,9,10,11]
List membership
x in l returns True if value x is found in list l
# Safely remove x from l
if x in l:
l.remove(x)
# Remove all occurrences of x from l
while x in l:
l.remove(x)
Other functions
l.reverse() — reverse l in place
l.sort() — sort l in ascending order
l.index(x) — find leftmost position of x in l
Avoid error by checking if x in l
l.rindex(x) — find rightmost position of x in l
Many more … see Python documentation!
Initialising names
A name cannot be used before it is assigned a
value
y = x + 1 # Error if x is unassigned
May forget this for lists where update is implicit
l.append(v)
Python needs to know that l is a list
Initialising names …
def factors(n):
for i in range(1,n+1):
if n%i == 0:
flist.append(i)
return(flist)
Initialising names …
def factors(n):
flist = []
for i in range(1,n+1):
if n%i == 0:
flist.append(i)
return(flist)
Summary
To extend lists in place, use l.append(),
l.extend()
Can also assign new value, in place, to a slice
Many built in functions for lists — see
documentation
Don’t forget to assign a value to a name before it
is first used
