GET214: COMPUTING AND SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

(Programming in Python)
LESSON 5: PYTHON DATA STRUCTURES I – STRINGS & LISTS
Learning Outcomes:
At the end of the lesson, students should be able to:
1. Use string indexing and slice operator to access characters in a string
2. Use string methods - count(), find(), upper(), lower(), split(), etc
3. Iterate through strings
4. Understand lists and how to create them
5. Use list methods – append(), pop(), insert(), remove() sort(), reverse(),
extend()
6. Iterate through list content of a list
7. Use of certain BIFs with list – min(), max(), sum(), len()
8. Index and slice through a list
9. Use nested loops to iterate list of lists
[Link] filtering using list comprehension

5.1 Python Strings

A string is a sequence of characters. Python provides useful methods for processing
string values. In previous lessons, we have learned the basics of strings and how they
can be displayed using the print() function. We had also used the len() function on
strings to return the number of characters in the string, including white spaces.

5.2 The String index operator []

We can access individual elements of a string using the index operator []. String
indexes count from 0. Thus the first character is at index 0 while the 3rd character is
at index 2.

The following code snippet and output illustrate the use of the index operator.

Python also recognizes negative indexes. The last character in a string is at index -1.
Thus, negative index counts from -1 from the right while positive index counts from
0 from the left.

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5.3 The Slice Operator [:]
String slicing is used when a programmer must get access to a sequence of
characters. Here, a string slicing operator can be used. When [a:b] is used with the
name of a string variable, a sequence of characters starting from index a (inclusive)
up to index b (exclusive) is returned. Both a and b are optional. If a or b are not
provided, the default values are 0 and len(string), respectively.

Example 5.1

Consider the following code and the output and learn how the slice operator is used
with the optional parameters.

5.4 String methods

String comes with some built-in methods to help manipulate it to desired format.
Table 5.1 itemizes some common string methods and their usages. The string
variable my_str, used in table 5.1 originally has the value “This is python
programming” stored.
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Table 5.1 – Some String methods

S/N Method Usage Result

1 lower() my_str.lower() 'this is python programming'

2 upper() my_str.upper() 'THIS IS PYTHON PROGRAMMING'

3 title() my_str.title() 'This Is Python Programming'

4 capitalize() my_str.capitalize() 'This is python programming'

5 count() my_str.count(‘is’) 2

6 find() my_str.find(‘python’) 8

my_str.find(‘.py’) -1

7 index() my_str.index(‘python’) 8
ValueError: substring not found
my_str.index(‘.py’)
['This', 'is', 'python', 'programming']
8 split() my_str.split()
'This is pythxn prxgramming'
9 replace() my_str.replace(‘o’,’x’)
False
10 isalpha() my_str.isalpha()

my_str[:4].isalpha() True
False
isdigit() my_str.isdigit()

11 Join() ‘ ‘.join([‘at’, ‘thy’, ‘word’]) ‘at thy word’

4.5 Immutability of String

String objects are immutable meaning that string objects cannot be modified or
changed once created. Once a string object is created, the string's contents cannot be
altered by directly modifying individual characters or elements within the string.

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Instead, to make changes to a string, a new string object with the desired changes is
created, leaving the original string unchanged.

Example 5.1: Getting the time's minute portion

Activity 5.1: Changing the greeting message

Given the string "Hello my fellow classmates" containing a greeting message, print
the first word by getting the beginning of the string up to (and including) the 5th
character. Change the first word in the string to "Hi" instead of "hello" and print the
greeting message again.

Activity 5.2: Finding all Spaces

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Activity 5.3: Unique and comma separated words

5.6 Introduction to Python Lists

Programmers often work on collections of data. Lists are a useful way of collecting
data elements. Python lists are extremely flexible, and, unlike strings, a list's contents
can be changed. List is therefore a mutable data structure.

5.7 Using lists methods the modify lists

 An append() operation is used to add an element to the end of a list. In

programming, append means add to the end.
 A remove() operation removes the specified element from a list.
 A pop() operation removes the last item of a list.
 The insert() method adds element to the list at the specified index positon.

Example 5.2: Simple operations to modify a list

The code below demonstrates simple operations for modifying a list. Line 8 shows
the append() operation, line 12 shows the remove() operation, and line 17 shows the
pop() operation. Since the pop() operation removes the last element, no parameter is
needed.

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The above code’s output is:

5.7 Iterating a List

An iterative for loop can be used to iterate through a list. Alternatively, lists can be
iterated using list indexes with a counting for loop.

Given the following assignment,

names = ['Jack', 'Mark', 'Mary', 'Glory']

We ca iterate through the list using the list index thus:

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We can also iterate through the list by naming the items of the list instead of using
indexes.

5.8 Sorting a list

Ordering elements in a sequence is often useful. Sorting is the task of arranging
elements in a sequence in ascending or descending order.
Sorting can work on numerical or non-numerical data. When ordering text,
dictionary order is used. Ex: "bat" comes before "cat" because "b" comes before "c".
Python provides methods for arranging elements in a list.

 The sort() method arranges the elements of a list in ascending order. For
strings, ASCII values are used and uppercase characters come before
lowercase characters, leading to unexpected results. Ex: "A" is ordered before
"a" in ascending order but so is "G"; thus, "Gail" comes before "apple".
 The reverse() method reverses the elements in a list.

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5.8 Common List Operations
The max() function called on a list returns the largest element in the list. The min()
function called on a list returns the smallest element in the list. The max() and min()
functions work for lists as long as elements within the list are comparable.
The sum() function called on a list of numbers returns the sum of all elements in the
list.

5.9 Indexing and slicing through a list

We can access individual elements of a list using its index as illustrated in section
5.7. As strings, list indexes count from 0 from the left or -1 from the right.

Given the assignment, scores = [48, 73, 21, 65, 48, 57, 63, 80],
The following illustrate the indexing and slicing operations:

 The third item on the list, 21, is accessed through scores[2]

 The last item, 80 is accessed by scores[-1]
 The first 3 items are access by scores[:4]
 The last 3 items are accessed by scores[-3:]

5.10 Nested List

Lists can be made of any type of element. A list element can also be a list. Example:
[2, [3, 5], 17] is a valid list with the list [3, 5] being the element at index 1.

When a list is an element inside a larger list, it is called a nested list. Nested lists are
useful for expressing multidimensional data. When each of the elements of a larger
list is a smaller list, the larger list is called a list-of-lists.
We use a double index operator to access elements of an inner list. For instance,
given that the siwes_score = [1, [4,8,2], [5,3], 6], to get the item
5 from the list [5,3], we use siwes_score[2][0].

5.11 List Comprehension

A list comprehension is a Python statement to compactly create a new list using a
pattern.

The general form of a list comprehension statement is shown below.

list_name = [expression for loop_variable in iterable]
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list_name refers to the name of a new list, which can be anything, and the for is the
for loop keyword. An expression defines what will become part of the new list.
loop_variable is an iterator, and iterable is an object that can be iterated, such as a
list or string.
Example 5.3: Creating a new list with a list comprehension

A list comprehension shown below in the second code has the same effect as the
regular for loop shown in the first code. The resultant list is [0, 1, 4, 9, 16,
25, 36, 49, 64, 81] in both cases.

Creating a list of squares using a for loop.

# Create an empty List.
squares_list = []
# Add items to a list, as squares of numbers starting at
#0 and ending at 9.

for i in range(10):
squares_list.append(i*i)

Creating a list of squares using the list comprehension.

square_list = [i*i for i in range(10)]

The expression i*i is applied for each value of the loop_variable i.

5.12 Filtering Using List Comprehension

List comprehensions can be used to filter items from a given list. A condition is
added to the list comprehension.
list_name = [expression for loop_variable in container if condition]

In a filter list comprehension, an element is added into list_name only if the condition
is met.

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Concepts in Practice Questions to attempt from the textbook

Pages 119 – 209, 224 – 230

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