Lists

From Computer Science Wiki
Revision as of 07:31, 7 August 2017 by Mr. MacKenty (talk | contribs)
Programming basics[1]

A list is a data structure in Python that is a mutable, or changeable, ordered sequence of elements. Each element or value that is inside of a list is called an item. Just as strings are defined as characters between quotes, lists are defined by having values between square brackets [ ].[2]

Please be careful as lists can be thought of as analogous to arrays, but they aren't the same thing. Arrays traditionally have a fixed memory size whilst lists have dynamic memory allocation. When you are working in Python, call a list a list. When you are working in PHP or Javascript, call an array an array. When you are working in C, call for help!

Creating a list[edit]

# The code below creates a list named polishAnimals 
polishAnimals = ['Bison', 'Moose', 'Deer', 'Lynx', 'Wolf', 'Beaver', 'Otter']

accessing a list[edit]

# If you want to print a list (kind of ugly) you can simply:
print(polishAnimals)
# However, it is far more common to slice into a list
print(polishAnimals[2])



inserting into a list[edit]

deleting a list or deleting an element from a list[edit]

finding an element in a list[edit]

sorting a list[edit]

Do you understand this?[edit]

Standards[edit]

  • Construct algorithms using pre- defined sub-programmes, one- dimensional arrays and/or collections.


References[edit]