Building lists
Seymore4Head
Seymore4Head at Hotmail.invalid
Tue Oct 21 08:55:31 EDT 2014
On Tue, 21 Oct 2014 00:40:06 -0700, Larry Hudson <orgnut at yahoo.com>
wrote:
>On 10/20/2014 12:49 PM, Seymore4Head wrote:
>> On Mon, 20 Oct 2014 20:40:18 +0100, MRAB <python at mrabarnett.plus.com>
>> wrote:
>>
> <snip>
>
>> Do you have to know the number of items the list will have before
>> making it?
>>
>
>No. Lists are NOT the same as arrays in other languages. But it IS possible to create an
>initial list of a specific size:
>
>myList = [None] * 50
>
>This creates a 50-element list with each element set to None. (BTW, that makes the indexes
>0-49, not 0-50.) I have occasionally found this useful, but I emphasize it is only RARELY
>useful. The .append() method is far more versatile.
>
>As to your original problem: my question to you is what is your purpose?
>
>1) To solve this particular problem, using Python.
> or
>2) To explore the usage of lists by applying them to this problem.
>
>If your purpose is the first, then I agree with the advice you have already been given here --
>dictionaries are a much better fit to this problem.
>
>If your purpose is the second, then go ahead, have at it. But realize that to more experienced
>Pythonistas this approach the very un-pythonic for this problem. It would be even better to try
>multiple approaches -- lists, dictionaries, lists with dictionaries, dictionaries with lists or
>tuples... or whatever combination you can come up with. This will give you even more
>experience and allow you to evaluate these various techniques.
>
>And no, I won't give you a ready-made "canned" answer. For one thing your original description
>is much too vague. But good luck!
>
> -=- Larry -=-
Also, I had no need to impose a limit on the list, but I asked that
question, just in case.
Thanks
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