[Tutor] Request for help learning the right way to deal with listsin lists

[Alan Gauld]

"Siren Saren" <siren99 at yahoo.com> wrote
> say I have a list that's a composite of two elements:
> books and key pages / albums and favorite tracks /
> medicines and times taken, whatever.

Thats a good scenario for using a dictionary containing
a list or tuple per key.

> To make a program that does something to the
> first set of elements based on the second set of elements,

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this though...?

> if I am planning to, for example, tear out these key
> pages and make a wall hanging. Am I right to think
> that I want to get them into a form that clearly relates
> them to each other from the outset?

Yes, you should always try to find a data structure that
reflects the problem. It will naturally lead to simpler algorithms
and cleaner code.

> Does a dictionary make sense-- I've read that I should
> expect to put a lot of my data into dictionaries?

Yes a dictionary is a good structure for random lookups
based on a unique key that returns related data.

> a. Make a sublist of the Books.

You don't need a sublist, just use the dictionary.

> b. Look each up book in the main list to get an index values

You don't need index values, just use the dictionary directly.

> For book in Books:
> A dictionary should map the book to a list of all the elements
> in the main list that fall between the book's index value and
> the next book's index value

The dictionary returns the list of pages directly.

> I keep coming up with embedded loops to express this
> but I simultaneously feel like I am missing a third layer

You need a loop over the dictionary and possibly a loop over the 
pages:

for book, pages in Books.items():
    print book
    for page in pages:
         print 'page: ', page

If the data gets more complex you could put the data into a class:

class Book:
      def __init__(self, title, pages=[]):
          self.title = title
          self.pages = pages

Books = [ Book('War & Peace", [3,56,88]),
               Book("Huck Finn", [2,5,19]) ]

for book in Books:
     print book.title, book.pages

Thre are many options, you need to decide which best suits your 
problem.

HTH,


-- 
Alan Gauld
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.alan-g.me.uk/