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Introduction to Python Lists

Welcome to the "DSA in Python" tutorial series. In this tutorial, we'll learn about one of the fundamental data structures in Python i.e, Lists. Lists are versatile and widely used containers that allow us to store and manipulate collections of data.

What is a List in Python?

  • It is a in-built data structure in Python.

  • It is an ordered collection of items, where each item can be of any data type (such as numbers, strings, etc.).

  • Lists are created by placing a comma-separated sequence of items inside square brackets [].

Characteristics of Lists

Here are some main characteristics of Python lists:

  1. Ordered: Lists are ordered, which means that the items have a specific sequence and can be accessed by their index value within the list.

  2. Mutable: Lists are mutable, which means we can change, add, or remove items from a list after it is created.

  3. Indexed: We can access individual elements in a list using their index, starting from 0 for the first item.

  4. Dynamic Size: Lists can grow or shrink in size as we add or remove element.

 

Creating Lists

We can create a list in Python using square brackets [] and separating the elements with commas. Here's an example:

my_list = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

 

Common List Operations

Python lists support various operations, including:

  • Append: Add an element to the end of the list.

  • Insert: Insert an element at a specific index.

  • Remove: Remove an element by its value.

  • Pop: Remove and return an element by its index.

  • Count: Returns the number of elements with a specified value.

  • Insert: It is used to insert a value at a defined index inside the list.

  • Length: Find the number of elements in the list.

  • Concatenation: Combine two or more lists.

You can check out practical examples of these operations in our Python tutorial.