Question

How do I create an empty list that can hold 10 elements?

After that, I want to assign values in that list. For example:

xs = list()
for i in range(0, 9):
   xs[i] = i

However, that gives IndexError: list assignment index out of range. Why?

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Editor’s note:

_{In Python, lists do not have a set capacity, but it is not possible to assign to elements that aren’t already present. Answers here show code that creates a list with 10 "dummy" elements to replace later. However, most beginners encountering this problem really just want to build a list by adding elements to it. That should be done using the .append method, although there will often be problem-specific ways to create the list more directly. Please see Why does this iterative list-growing code give IndexError: list assignment index out of range? How can I repeatedly add elements to a list? for details.}

Answer 1

You cannot assign to a list like xs[i] = value, unless the list already is initialized with at least i+1 elements (because the first index is 0). Instead, use xs.append(value) to add elements to the end of the list. (Though you could use the assignment notation if you were using a dictionary instead of a list.)

Creating an empty list:

>>> xs = [None] * 10
>>> xs
[None, None, None, None, None, None, None, None, None, None]

Assigning a value to an existing element of the above list:

>>> xs[1] = 5
>>> xs
[None, 5, None, None, None, None, None, None, None, None]

Keep in mind that something like xs[15] = 5 would still fail, as our list has only 10 elements.

range(x) creates a list from [0, 1, 2, … x-1]

# 2.X only. Use list(range(10)) in 3.X.
>>> xs = range(10)
>>> xs
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

Using a function to create a list:

>>> def display():
...     xs = []
...     for i in range(9): # This is just to tell you how to create a list.
...         xs.append(i)
...     return xs
... 
>>> print display()
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]

List comprehension (Using the squares because for range you don’t need to do all this, you can just return range(0,9) ):

>>> def display():
...     return [x**2 for x in range(9)]
... 
>>> print display()
[0, 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64]