Question

I have a list and I would like to make a new list where newlist[i] = 'literal' + oldlist[i].

I have tried code like:

i = 1
for elem in oldlist:
 newlist[i] = 'literal' + oldlist[i]
 i += 1

i = 1
for elem in newlist:
 elem = 'literal' + oldlist[i]
 i += 1

and many similar attempts yet keep getting errors such as “can’t assign to function call” and others. How should my code be?

Answer 1

Lists are zero-based meaning the first item in the list is at index 0.

e.g.,

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

print(l[0]) # 1
print(l[1]) # 2

You are starting your indexing at 1 hence your first item never gets changed.

---

Though your code doesn’t fit the canonical “indexed-loop” format. It should look more like this:

for i in range(len(oldlist)):
    newlist[i] = 'literal' + oldlist[i]

But an even better way to do this is to use a list comprehension:

newlist = ['literal' + olditem for olditem in oldlist]