MIT Python学习基础系列（一） - list

Lists

Ordered sequence of information, accessible by index

Denoted by [ ]

• A list contains elements usually homogenous, not commonly contain mixed types
• Elements can be changed -> mutable
• Changing elements
  After the element is changed, it still points to the same object
• Iterating over a list

 for i in L: 
     total += i

List operation

• Add elements to end of list

L.append( )

• Mutates the list

  Everything in python is an object, lists are objects
  Objects has functions and methods

  • Access this information by object_name.something()

• Concatenate 2 lists L1.extend( [0, 6] )

  • Mutate with L.extend (some_list)

• Remove

del ( L[index] ) #delete element at specific index

#removes element at end of list
#If no index is specified, removes the last element
#Or remove the element at the specified index

L.pop ( index) 

#removes a specific element
#Removes the first occurrence if the element occurs multiple times
#Returns error if the element is not in the list
L.remove (element)

• Converts strings and back

#returns a list with every character from s in L
list(s) 

# split a string on a character parameter 
# if called without a parameter, splits on spaces
s.split( )      

#turn a list of characters into a string 
‘ ‘. join(L)  (‘_’.join(L) - > “a_b_c” )

• reverse()

Mutation, Aliasing, Cloning

• Lists in memory
• Is an object in memory
• Variable name points to object
• Any variable pointing to that object is affected -> watch out the side effects

Aliases
append() has side effect
print is not ==

• If two lists print the same thing, does not mean they are the same structure
• Can test by mutating one and check

Cloning a list
Create a new list and copy every element

L2 = L1[:] #L2 is a copy of L1->different from L2 = L1

Sorting a list
Sort change the list, returns nothing
sorted() does not mutate list, must assign result to a variable
L.sort() changes L, sorted(L) gives a sorted version of L but L stays the same

Lists of lists of lists of…
Can have nested lists

Mutation and iteration

• Avoid mutating a list as you are iterating over it

for e in L1: 
    if e in L2: L1.remove( e)
L1 = [1,2,3,4] L2 = [1,4,2,6]  -> L1 = [2,3,4]

When you remove 1 in L1, L1 changes and python will not see 2 in L1
Solution
Make a copy of L1 and iterate over L1_copy