Creating lists and tuples

3.6.1. Creating lists and tuples#

As implied by its name, a list is a list of values. A tuple is also a list of values, however it cannot be modified after being created while a list can. Choosing between a list or a tuple is often philosophical:

  • We normally use a tuple to express a constant using a group of variables. The coordinates of a 2D point (x, y) is a good example. Once a 2D point is defined by its two coordinates (x, y), there is no use to append a third value to it.

  • We normally use a list to express an expandable list of values. A series of measurements [x0, x1, x1, x2, x3] is a good example. We may add or remove measurements from a list.

Important

We usually use lists more often than tuples in data processing because they are more flexible. Therefore, from now on, we will focus on lists. This being said, everything on this page also applies to tuples.

A tuple is created using parentheses ():

coordinates = (1.0, 5.2)

A list is created using square brackets []:

empty_list = []
list_of_integers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Lists can contain any kind of variable, even other lists or any other container type such as dictionaries:

list_of_anything = [
    "hello",            # string
    0,                  # int
    4.5,                # float
    (2 + 3j),           # complex
    False,              # bool
    [1, 2, 3],          # list
    {"key": "value"},   # dict
]

Note

The {"key": "value"} syntax is a dictionary, that will be seen in section Dictionaries.

We can get the length of a list (i.e., the number of elements it contains) using the len function:

len(list_of_anything)

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