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Chapter 7 of 15All chapters

Chapter 7 of 15

Lists

The ordered container you will use most.

Making and changing

A list holds an ordered sequence you can change in place. append adds one item, extend adds many, pop removes and returns, and remove deletes by value.

  • Lists can hold mixed types, though code is easier to read when they do not.
  • sort() reorders in place and returns None. sorted(items) returns a new list.

Comprehensions

A comprehension builds a list from a loop in one expression: [x * 2 for x in range(3)] gives [0, 2, 4]. Adding a condition filters: [x for x in items if x > 0].

  • Read it as the output first, then the loop, then the filter.
  • Anything longer than one line is clearer as a normal loop.