List Methods and Slicing
Lists in Python are powerful. They let you store multiple items and also change, extend, and extract parts of them.
Two key skills every analyst should know when working with lists are:
- Using list methods to update content
- Using slicing to access sections of a list
Common List Methods
List methods make it easy to modify the contents of a list. Some useful beginner-friendly methods are:
.append(): add an item to the end.insert(): add an item at a specific index.remove(): delete the first matching item.pop(): remove an item by index.sort(): sorts the list in place
List Slicing
Slicing lets you extract parts of a list by specifying a start and stop index.
List Slicing
numbers[1:4] # Gets items from index 1 to 3 (not including 4)
You can also use:
[:]: copy the whole list[-3:]: get the last three items[::2]: get every second item
These techniques make it easier to work with subsets of data.
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