Lists: Many Things at Once

So far each variable held one thing. But often we want a collection — a shopping list, a set of scores, names of friends. For that we use a list.

A list is written with square brackets, with items separated by commas:

fruits = ["apple", "banana", "cherry"]

That one variable, fruits, now holds three strings.

Getting items out

Each item has a position number called an index. Here's the part that surprises everyone: counting starts at 0, not 1.

fruits = ["apple", "banana", "cherry"]
print(fruits[0])   # apple
print(fruits[1])   # banana
print(fruits[2])   # cherry

So the first item is at index 0, the second at 1, and so on. It feels odd at first, then becomes second nature.

How many items?

len counts the items in a list, just like it counted characters in a string:

print(len(fruits))   # 3

Adding to a list

You can add a new item to the end with .append():

fruits.append("date")
print(fruits)   # ['apple', 'banana', 'cherry', 'date']

Your turn

Add another fruit to the list with .append(), then print the whole list.