numbering variables

[Steve]

Ron_Adam wrote:

> On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 13:39:17 +0200, remi <remi at non.com> wrote:
> 
>>Hello,
>>
>>I have got a list like : mylist = ['item 1', 'item 2',....'item n'] and 
>>I would like to store the string 'item1' in a variable called s_1, 
>>'item2' in s_2,...,'item i' in 's_i',... The lenght of mylist is finite ;-)
>>Any ideas ?
>>Thanks a lot.
>>Rémi.
> 
> Why not just access the list by index?  Just start with zero instead
> of 1.

If you _really_ must have one-based indexes, use a 
sentinal at the beginning of the list:

 >>> mylist = ['item 1', 'item 2',....'item n']
 >>> s = [None] + mylist # the sentinal is never used
 >>> print s[1]
'item 1'
 >>> print s[28]
'item 28'
 >>> print s[29] # there are only 28 items!
Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
IndexError: list index out of range


Then you can process all the items without needing to 
remember how many there are:

 >>> for i in range(1, len(s)):
...     do_something(s[i])


--
Steven