Accessing elements from the List

​To access the list items, reference is made to the index number. Indexing in Python lists is handled in the same way as indexing strings. where the index starts from 0 . The first element of the list is stored at index 0, the second element of the list is stored at index 1, and so on.

Items in lists are accessed in two ways:

• Accessing list items by positive index number


• Accessing list items by negative index number

Accessing list items by positive index number

In the following example, we will define a variable named list that contains a list of integers.

Example:

# Example of accessing list elements by positive index number
list = [1,2,3,4,5]
print(list[1])
print(list[0:2])
print(list[1:5])
print(list[2:4])

The output will be:

2
[1, 2]
[2, 3, 4, 5]
[3, 4]

In the following example, we will define a variable named list that contains a list of texts. Then we display the value of the first and third element in it.

Example:

# Create a list using multiple values
List = ["Java", "Python", "C#"]
# Access an element fromundefined List using index number
 print(List[0])
 print(List[2])

 The output will be:

 java
 C#

 Accessing list items by negative index number

 Negative indexing means starting from the end, -1 indicates the last element

 In the following example, we will define a variable called list that contains a list of numbers.

 Example:

 # Example of accessing list elements by negative index number
 list = [1,2,3,4,5]
 print(list[-1])
 print(list[-3:-1])

 The output will be: 

5
 [3, 4]

 In the following example, we will define a variable named list that contains a list of texts. Then we display the value of the penultimate element and the last element.

 Example:

 # Create a list using multiple values
 List = ["Java", "Python", "C#"]
 # Access an item from the list using the index number
 print(List[-1])
 print(List[-2])

 The output will be:

 C#
 Python

 External sources:

 List in Python - official Python documentation

 If you have any questions or concerns, leave them in the comments