List
List is used to group together values, can be written as a list of comma-separated values (items) between square brackets. Lists might contain items of different types, but usually the items all have the same type.
List's index starts from 0, and you can visit last element using index -1:
a = [1, 5, 2, 3]
print a[0] # 1
print a[1] # 5
print a[-1] # 3
print a[1:3] # Get elements from index 1 to index 3 (exclusive), i.e. [5, 2]
Change element at a index:
a = [1, 5, 2, 3]
a[1] = 7
print a # [1, 7, 2, 3]
To check if one element in a list, you can use in:
a = [1, 5, 2, 3]
print 5 in a # True
Use function len to get length (how many elements) of a list:
a = [1, 5, 2, 3]
print len(a) # 4
Functions
list.append(x)list.count(x)list.extend(L)list.index(x)list.insert(i, x)list.pop([i])list.remove(x)list.reverse()list.sort(cmp=None, key=None, reverse=False)
For how to use those functions, check lists method on Python official documentation
Example
a = [1, 5, 2, 3]
a.append(6)
print a # [1, 5, 2, 3, 6]
print a.count(5) # 1
a.remove(2)
print a # [1, 5, 3, 6]
a.reverse()
print a # [6, 3, 5, 1]
a.sort()
print a # [1, 3, 5, 6]
Tuple
Tuple is similar with list, the main difference is list is mutable and tuple is immutable. Once you defined a tuple with parentheses (), you can not change its element.
b = (1, 5, 2, 3)
b.append(6) # this will give an error, since b is a tuple and immutable
Conversion between tuple and list
Though a tuple can not be changed, you can convert it to list, make some changes, then convert it back to tuple. You can do this with tuple and list function.
b = (1, 5, 2, 3)
b = list(b) # Convert tuple to list
b.append(6) # Change list - append one more element
b = tuple(b) # Convert list to tuple
print b # (1, 5, 2, 3, 6)