Life is full of amazing opportunities. You can explore forests, climb mountains, run with wolves. Or you could learn Python. What do you do when you’re overwhelmed with choices? Creating a Python list and using Python list methods will help you prioritize your goals and achieve success.
Getting Things Done with Python List Methods
I wrote a to-do list.
- Things to do today
- Go to the store
- Play
- Sing a tune or song
- Eat
- Draw
- Drink
- Get dizzy
- Sit down
Lists are so useful. I have so much to do today! Let’s put my to-do list in a Python list:
>>> todo = ['Go to the store', 'Play', 'Sing a tune or song', 'Eat', 'Draw', 'Drink', 'Get dizzy', 'Sit down']
>>> todo
['Go to the store', 'Play', 'Sing a tune or song', 'Eat', 'Draw', 'Drink', 'Get dizzy', 'Sit down']What’s on your to-do list?
append()
If I want to add an item to my list, I use the append() method, like this:
>>> todo.append(“Save the world!”)
>>> todo
['Go to the store', 'Play', 'Sing a tune or song', 'Eat', 'Draw', 'Drink', 'Get dizzy', 'Sit down', ‘Save the world!’]extend()
If I didn’t finish my to-do list from yesterday, I can add it to today’s list:
>>> yesterday = [‘Nap’, ‘Learn Python’, ‘Read “Don Quixote” ‘]
>>> todo.extend(yesterday)
>>> todo
['Go to the store', 'Play', 'Sing a tune or song', 'Eat', 'Draw', 'Drink', 'Get dizzy', 'Sit down', 'Save the world!', 'Nap', 'Learn Python', ‘Read “Don Quixote”’]remove()
When it’s time to get realistic about our goals, we can remove items using the remove() method.
>>>todo.remove(‘Read “Don Quixote”’)pop()
When a list item needs extra attention, make it pop! The pop() method removes and returns an item by index.
>>>todo.pop(0)
‘Go to the store’The pop() method is useful when you want to remove an item from a list and perform another action on it, like moving it to a different list.
>>>done = todo.pop(0)
>>>done
>>>’Play’If ‘Learn Python’ is still on your list, see you in the next chapter introducing Python functions.
