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5. Data Structures
This chapter describes some things you’ve learned about already in more detail, and
adds some new things as well.

5.1. More on Lists

The list data type has some more methods. Here are all of the methods of list
objects:
list. append (x)
Add an item to the end of the list. Equivalent to a[len(a):] = [x] .

list. extend (iterable)

Extend the list by appending all the items from the iterable. Equivalent to
a[len(a):] = iterable .

list. insert (i, x)

Insert an item at a given position. The first argument is the index of the element
before which to insert, so a.insert(0, x) inserts at the front of the list, and
a.insert(len(a), x) is equivalent to a.append(x) .

list. remove (x)

Remove the first item from the list whose value is equal to x. It is an error if there
is no such item.
list. pop ([i])
Remove the item at the given position in the list, and return it. If no index is spe‑
cified, a.pop() removes and returns the last item in the list. (The square brackets
around the i in the method signature denote that the parameter is optional, not
that you should type square brackets at that position. You will see this notation
frequently in the Python Library Reference.)
list. clear ()
Remove all items from the list. Equivalent to del a[:] .

list. index (x[, start[, end]])

Return zero‑based index in the list of the first item whose value is equal to x.
Raises a ValueError if there is no such item.
The optional arguments start and end are interpreted as in the slice notation and
are used to limit the search to a particular subsequence of the list. The returned
index is computed relative to the beginning of the full sequence rather than the
start argument.
list. count (x)
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Return the number of times x appears in the list.

list. sort (key=None, reverse=False)
Sort the items of the list in place (the arguments can be used for sort customiza‑
tion, see sorted() for their explanation).
list. reverse ()
Reverse the elements of the list in place.
list. copy ()
Return a shallow copy of the list. Equivalent to a[:] .
An example that uses most of the list methods:
>>>
>>> fruits = ['orange', 'apple', 'pear', 'banana', 'kiwi', 'apple', 'ban
>>> fruits.count('apple')
2
>>> fruits.count('tangerine')
0
>>> fruits.index('banana')
3
>>> fruits.index('banana', 4) # Find next banana starting a position 4
6
>>> fruits.reverse()
>>> fruits
['banana', 'apple', 'kiwi', 'banana', 'pear', 'apple', 'orange']
>>> fruits.append('grape')
>>> fruits
['banana', 'apple', 'kiwi', 'banana', 'pear', 'apple', 'orange', 'grape'
>>> fruits.sort()
>>> fruits
['apple', 'apple', 'banana', 'banana', 'grape', 'kiwi', 'orange', 'pear'
>>> fruits.pop()
'pear'

You might have noticed that methods like insert , remove or sort that only modify
the list have no return value printed – they return the default None . [1] This is a
design principle for all mutable data structures in Python.

5.1.1. Using Lists as Stacks

The list methods make it very easy to use a list as a stack, where the last element ad‑
ded is the first element retrieved (“last‑in, first‑out”). To add an item to the top of
the stack, use append() . To retrieve an item from the top of the stack, use pop()
without an explicit index. For example:
>>>
>>> stack = [3, 4, 5]
>>> stack.append(6)
>>> stack.append(7)
>>> stack
[3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
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>>> stack.pop()
7
>>> stack
[3, 4, 5, 6]
>>> stack.pop()
6
>>> stack.pop()
5
>>> stack
[3, 4]

5.1.2. Using Lists as Queues

It is also possible to use a list as a queue, where the first element added is the first
element retrieved (“first‑in, first‑out”); however, lists are not efficient for this pur‑
pose. While appends and pops from the end of list are fast, doing inserts or pops
from the beginning of a list is slow (because all of the other elements have to be shif‑
ted by one).
To implement a queue, use collections.deque which was designed to have fast ap‑
pends and pops from both ends. For example:
>>>
>>> from collections import deque
>>> queue = deque(["Eric", "John", "Michael"])
>>> queue.append("Terry") # Terry arrives
>>> queue.append("Graham") # Graham arrives
>>> queue.popleft() # The first to arrive now leaves
'Eric'
>>> queue.popleft() # The second to arrive now leaves
'John'
>>> queue # Remaining queue in order of arriva
deque(['Michael', 'Terry', 'Graham'])

5.1.3. List Comprehensions

List comprehensions provide a concise way to create lists. Common applications are
to make new lists where each element is the result of some operations applied to
each member of another sequence or iterable, or to create a subsequence of those
elements that satisfy a certain condition.
For example, assume we want to create a list of squares, like:
>>>
>>> squares = []
>>> for x in range(10):
... squares.append(x**2)
...
>>> squares
[0, 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81]

Note that this creates (or overwrites) a variable named x that still exists after the loop
completes. We can calculate the list of squares without any side effects using:
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squares = list(map(lambda x: x**2, range(10)))

or, equivalently:
squares = [x**2 for x in range(10)]

which is more concise and readable.

A list comprehension consists of brackets containing an expression followed by a for
clause, then zero or more for or if clauses. The result will be a new list resulting
from evaluating the expression in the context of the for and if clauses which follow
it. For example, this listcomp combines the elements of two lists if they are not
equal:
>>>
>>> [(x, y) for x in [1,2,3] for y in [3,1,4] if x != y]
[(1, 3), (1, 4), (2, 3), (2, 1), (2, 4), (3, 1), (3, 4)]

and it’s equivalent to:

>>>
>>> combs = []
>>> for x in [1,2,3]:
... for y in [3,1,4]:
... if x != y:
... combs.append((x, y))
...
>>> combs
[(1, 3), (1, 4), (2, 3), (2, 1), (2, 4), (3, 1), (3, 4)]

Note how the order of the for and if statements is the same in both these snippets.
If the expression is a tuple (e.g. the (x, y) in the previous example), it must be
parenthesized.
>>>
>>> vec = [-4, -2, 0, 2, 4]
>>> # create a new list with the values doubled
>>> [x*2 for x in vec]
[-8, -4, 0, 4, 8]
>>> # filter the list to exclude negative numbers
>>> [x for x in vec if x >= 0]
[0, 2, 4]
>>> # apply a function to all the elements
>>> [abs(x) for x in vec]
[4, 2, 0, 2, 4]
>>> # call a method on each element
>>> freshfruit = [' banana', ' loganberry ', 'passion fruit ']
>>> [weapon.strip() for weapon in freshfruit]
['banana', 'loganberry', 'passion fruit']
>>> # create a list of 2-tuples like (number, square)
>>> [(x, x**2) for x in range(6)]
[(0, 0), (1, 1), (2, 4), (3, 9), (4, 16), (5, 25)]
>>> # the tuple must be parenthesized, otherwise an error is raised
>>> [x, x**2 for x in range(6)]
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
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[x, x**2 for x in range(6)]

^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
>>> # flatten a list using a listcomp with two 'for'
>>> vec = [[1,2,3], [4,5,6], [7,8,9]]
>>> [num for elem in vec for num in elem]
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

List comprehensions can contain complex expressions and nested functions:

>>>
>>> from math import pi
>>> [str(round(pi, i)) for i in range(1, 6)]
['3.1', '3.14', '3.142', '3.1416', '3.14159']

5.1.4. Nested List Comprehensions

The initial expression in a list comprehension can be any arbitrary expression, in‑
cluding another list comprehension.
Consider the following example of a 3x4 matrix implemented as a list of 3 lists of
length 4:
>>>
>>> matrix = [
... [1, 2, 3, 4],
... [5, 6, 7, 8],
... [9, 10, 11, 12],
... ]

The following list comprehension will transpose rows and columns:

>>>
>>> [[row[i] for row in matrix] for i in range(4)]
[[1, 5, 9], [2, 6, 10], [3, 7, 11], [4, 8, 12]]

As we saw in the previous section, the nested listcomp is evaluated in the context of
the for that follows it, so this example is equivalent to:
>>>
>>> transposed = []
>>> for i in range(4):
... transposed.append([row[i] for row in matrix])
...
>>> transposed
[[1, 5, 9], [2, 6, 10], [3, 7, 11], [4, 8, 12]]

which, in turn, is the same as:

>>>
>>> transposed = []
>>> for i in range(4):
... # the following 3 lines implement the nested listcomp
... transposed_row = []
... for row in matrix:
... transposed_row.append(row[i])
... transposed.append(transposed_row)

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...
>>> transposed
[[1, 5, 9], [2, 6, 10], [3, 7, 11], [4, 8, 12]]

In the real world, you should prefer built‑in functions to complex flow statements.
The zip() function would do a great job for this use case:
>>>
>>> list(zip(*matrix))
[(1, 5, 9), (2, 6, 10), (3, 7, 11), (4, 8, 12)]

See Unpacking Argument Lists for details on the asterisk in this line.

5.2. The del statement

There is a way to remove an item from a list given its index instead of its value: the
del statement. This differs from the pop() method which returns a value. The del
statement can also be used to remove slices from a list or clear the entire list (which
we did earlier by assignment of an empty list to the slice). For example:
>>>
>>> a = [-1, 1, 66.25, 333, 333, 1234.5]
>>> del a[0]
>>> a
[1, 66.25, 333, 333, 1234.5]
>>> del a[2:4]
>>> a
[1, 66.25, 1234.5]
>>> del a[:]
>>> a
[]

del can also be used to delete entire variables:

>>>
>>> del a

Referencing the name a hereafter is an error (at least until another value is assigned
to it). We’ll find other uses for del later.

5.3. Tuples and Sequences

We saw that lists and strings have many common properties, such as indexing and
slicing operations. They are two examples of sequence data types (see Sequence
Types — list, tuple, range). Since Python is an evolving language, other sequence data
types may be added. There is also another standard sequence data type: the tuple.
A tuple consists of a number of values separated by commas, for instance:
>>>
>>> t = 12345, 54321, 'hello!'
>>> t[0]
12345
>>> t
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(12345, 54321, 'hello!')

>>> # Tuples may be nested:
... u = t, (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
>>> u
((12345, 54321, 'hello!'), (1, 2, 3, 4, 5))
>>> # Tuples are immutable:
... t[0] = 88888
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: 'tuple' object does not support item assignment
>>> # but they can contain mutable objects:
... v = ([1, 2, 3], [3, 2, 1])
>>> v
([1, 2, 3], [3, 2, 1])

As you see, on output tuples are always enclosed in parentheses, so that nested
tuples are interpreted correctly; they may be input with or without surrounding par‑
entheses, although often parentheses are necessary anyway (if the tuple is part of a
larger expression). It is not possible to assign to the individual items of a tuple, how‑
ever it is possible to create tuples which contain mutable objects, such as lists.
Though tuples may seem similar to lists, they are often used in different situations
and for different purposes. Tuples are immutable, and usually contain a heterogen‑
eous sequence of elements that are accessed via unpacking (see later in this section)
or indexing (or even by attribute in the case of namedtuples ). Lists are mutable, and
their elements are usually homogeneous and are accessed by iterating over the list.
A special problem is the construction of tuples containing 0 or 1 items: the syntax
has some extra quirks to accommodate these. Empty tuples are constructed by an
empty pair of parentheses; a tuple with one item is constructed by following a value
with a comma (it is not sufficient to enclose a single value in parentheses). Ugly, but
effective. For example:
>>>
>>> empty = ()
>>> singleton = 'hello', # <-- note trailing comma
>>> len(empty)
0
>>> len(singleton)
1
>>> singleton
('hello',)

The statement t = 12345, 54321, 'hello!' is an example of tuple packing: the

values 12345 , 54321 and 'hello!' are packed together in a tuple. The reverse oper‑
ation is also possible:
>>>
>>> x, y, z = t

This is called, appropriately enough, sequence unpacking and works for any se‑
quence on the right‑hand side. Sequence unpacking requires that there are as many
variables on the left side of the equals sign as there are elements in the sequence.
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Note that multiple assignment is really just a combination of tuple packing and se‑
quence unpacking.

5.4. Sets
Python also includes a data type for sets. A set is an unordered collection with no du‑
plicate elements. Basic uses include membership testing and eliminating duplicate
entries. Set objects also support mathematical operations like union, intersection,
difference, and symmetric difference.
Curly braces or the set() function can be used to create sets. Note: to create an
empty set you have to use set() , not {} ; the latter creates an empty dictionary, a
data structure that we discuss in the next section.
Here is a brief demonstration:
>>> basket = {'apple', 'orange', 'apple', 'pear', 'orange', 'banana'}>>>
>>> print(basket) # show that duplicates have been
{'orange', 'banana', 'pear', 'apple'}
>>> 'orange' in basket # fast membership testing
True
>>> 'crabgrass' in basket
False

>>> # Demonstrate set operations on unique letters from two words

...
>>> a = set('abracadabra')
>>> b = set('alacazam')
>>> a # unique letters in a
{'a', 'r', 'b', 'c', 'd'}
>>> a - b # letters in a but not in b
{'r', 'd', 'b'}
>>> a | b # letters in a or b or both
{'a', 'c', 'r', 'd', 'b', 'm', 'z', 'l'}
>>> a & b # letters in both a and b
{'a', 'c'}
>>> a ^ b # letters in a or b but not both
{'r', 'd', 'b', 'm', 'z', 'l'}

Similarly to list comprehensions, set comprehensions are also supported:

>>>
>>> a = {x for x in 'abracadabra' if x not in 'abc'}
>>> a
{'r', 'd'}

5.5. Dictionaries
Another useful data type built into Python is the dictionary (see Mapping Types —
dict). Dictionaries are sometimes found in other languages as “associative memories”
or “associative arrays”. Unlike sequences, which are indexed by a range of numbers,
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dictionaries are indexed by keys, which can be any immutable type; strings and num‑
bers can always be keys. Tuples can be used as keys if they contain only strings,
numbers, or tuples; if a tuple contains any mutable object either directly or indirectly,
it cannot be used as a key. You can’t use lists as keys, since lists can be modified in
place using index assignments, slice assignments, or methods like append() and
extend() .

It is best to think of a dictionary as a set of key: value pairs, with the requirement that
the keys are unique (within one dictionary). A pair of braces creates an empty dic‑
tionary: {} . Placing a comma‑separated list of key:value pairs within the braces adds
initial key:value pairs to the dictionary; this is also the way dictionaries are written on
output.
The main operations on a dictionary are storing a value with some key and extracting
the value given the key. It is also possible to delete a key:value pair with del . If you
store using a key that is already in use, the old value associated with that key is for‑
gotten. It is an error to extract a value using a non‑existent key.
Performing list(d) on a dictionary returns a list of all the keys used in the diction‑
ary, in insertion order (if you want it sorted, just use sorted(d) instead). To check
whether a single key is in the dictionary, use the in keyword.
Here is a small example using a dictionary:
>>>
>>> tel = {'jack': 4098, 'sape': 4139}
>>> tel['guido'] = 4127
>>> tel
{'jack': 4098, 'sape': 4139, 'guido': 4127}
>>> tel['jack']
4098
>>> del tel['sape']
>>> tel['irv'] = 4127
>>> tel
{'jack': 4098, 'guido': 4127, 'irv': 4127}
>>> list(tel)
['jack', 'guido', 'irv']
>>> sorted(tel)
['guido', 'irv', 'jack']
>>> 'guido' in tel
True
>>> 'jack' not in tel
False

The dict() constructor builds dictionaries directly from sequences of key‑value

pairs:
>>>
>>> dict([('sape', 4139), ('guido', 4127), ('jack', 4098)])
{'sape': 4139, 'guido': 4127, 'jack': 4098}

In addition, dict comprehensions can be used to create dictionaries from arbitrary key
and value expressions:
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>>>
>>> {x: x**2 for x in (2, 4, 6)}
{2: 4, 4: 16, 6: 36}

When the keys are simple strings, it is sometimes easier to specify pairs using
keyword arguments:
>>>
>>> dict(sape=4139, guido=4127, jack=4098)
{'sape': 4139, 'guido': 4127, 'jack': 4098}

5.6. Looping Techniques

When looping through dictionaries, the key and corresponding value can be retrieved
at the same time using the items() method.
>>>
>>> knights = {'gallahad': 'the pure', 'robin': 'the brave'}
>>> for k, v in knights.items():
... print(k, v)
...
gallahad the pure
robin the brave

When looping through a sequence, the position index and corresponding value can
be retrieved at the same time using the enumerate() function.
>>>
>>> for i, v in enumerate(['tic', 'tac', 'toe']):
... print(i, v)
...
0 tic
1 tac
2 toe

To loop over two or more sequences at the same time, the entries can be paired with
the zip() function.
>>>
>>> questions = ['name', 'quest', 'favorite color']
>>> answers = ['lancelot', 'the holy grail', 'blue']
>>> for q, a in zip(questions, answers):
... print('What is your {0}? It is {1}.'.format(q, a))
...
What is your name? It is lancelot.
What is your quest? It is the holy grail.
What is your favorite color? It is blue.

To loop over a sequence in reverse, first specify the sequence in a forward direction
and then call the reversed() function.
>>>
>>> for i in reversed(range(1, 10, 2)):
... print(i)
...
9
7

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5
3
1

To loop over a sequence in sorted order, use the sorted() function which returns a
new sorted list while leaving the source unaltered.
>>> basket = ['apple', 'orange', 'apple', 'pear', 'orange', 'banana']>>>
>>> for f in sorted(set(basket)):
... print(f)
...
apple
banana
orange
pear

It is sometimes tempting to change a list while you are looping over it; however, it is
often simpler and safer to create a new list instead.
>>>
>>> import math
>>> raw_data = [56.2, float('NaN'), 51.7, 55.3, 52.5, float('NaN'), 47.8
>>> filtered_data = []
>>> for value in raw_data:
... if not math.isnan(value):
... filtered_data.append(value)
...
>>> filtered_data
[56.2, 51.7, 55.3, 52.5, 47.8]

5.7. More on Conditions

The conditions used in while and if statements can contain any operators, not just
comparisons.
The comparison operators in and not in check whether a value occurs (does not
occur) in a sequence. The operators is and is not compare whether two objects are
really the same object; this only matters for mutable objects like lists. All comparison
operators have the same priority, which is lower than that of all numerical operators.
Comparisons can be chained. For example, a < b == c tests whether a is less than
b and moreover b equals c .

Comparisons may be combined using the Boolean operators and and or , and the
outcome of a comparison (or of any other Boolean expression) may be negated with
not . These have lower priorities than comparison operators; between them, not has
the highest priority and or the lowest, so that A and not B or C is equivalent to (A
and (not B)) or C . As always, parentheses can be used to express the desired
composition.

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The Boolean operators and and or are so‑called short‑circuit operators: their argu‑
ments are evaluated from left to right, and evaluation stops as soon as the outcome
is determined. For example, if A and C are true but B is false, A and B and C does
not evaluate the expression C . When used as a general value and not as a Boolean,
the return value of a short‑circuit operator is the last evaluated argument.
It is possible to assign the result of a comparison or other Boolean expression to a
variable. For example,
>>>
>>> string1, string2, string3 = '', 'Trondheim', 'Hammer Dance'
>>> non_null = string1 or string2 or string3
>>> non_null
'Trondheim'

Note that in Python, unlike C, assignment cannot occur inside expressions. C pro‑
grammers may grumble about this, but it avoids a common class of problems en‑
countered in C programs: typing = in an expression when == was intended.

5.8. Comparing Sequences and Other Types

Sequence objects may be compared to other objects with the same sequence type.
The comparison uses lexicographical ordering: first the first two items are compared,
and if they differ this determines the outcome of the comparison; if they are equal,
the next two items are compared, and so on, until either sequence is exhausted. If
two items to be compared are themselves sequences of the same type, the lexico‑
graphical comparison is carried out recursively. If all items of two sequences compare
equal, the sequences are considered equal. If one sequence is an initial sub‑sequence
of the other, the shorter sequence is the smaller (lesser) one. Lexicographical order‑
ing for strings uses the Unicode code point number to order individual characters.
Some examples of comparisons between sequences of the same type:
(1, 2, 3) < (1, 2, 4)
[1, 2, 3] < [1, 2, 4]
'ABC' < 'C' < 'Pascal' < 'Python'
(1, 2, 3, 4) < (1, 2, 4)
(1, 2) < (1, 2, -1)
(1, 2, 3) == (1.0, 2.0, 3.0)
(1, 2, ('aa', 'ab')) < (1, 2, ('abc', 'a'), 4)

Note that comparing objects of different types with < or > is legal provided that the
objects have appropriate comparison methods. For example, mixed numeric types
are compared according to their numeric value, so 0 equals 0.0, etc. Otherwise,
rather than providing an arbitrary ordering, the interpreter will raise a TypeError
exception.

Footnotes

[1] Other languages may return the mutated object, which allows method
chaining, such as d->insert("a")->remove("b")->sort(); .
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