IndexError: "pop index out of range" with a for loop - python

How can I resolve this IndexError? I tried by using a while loop, but nothing changed.
Here is my code, it should check the length of the object of two lists (la, lb) and remove the string from la if the string is shorter than the lb string and vice versa. Plus it has to remove both of the strings if their length is the same.
def change(l1, l2):
la1 = l1[:]
la2 = l2[:]
i = 0
for i in range(len(la1)):
if la1[i] == la2[i]:
l1.pop(i)
l2.pop(i)
elif la1[i] > la2[i]:
l2.pop(i)
elif la2[i] > la1[i]:
l1.pop(i)

Assuming your lists are of equal lengths
As has been pointed out in the comments, the IndexError happens due to your lists' length changing when you pop() an item.
Since you're iterating over your list using a range(len(l)) in a for loop, which isn't updated after every completed loop, you'll eventually hit an index that's out of range.
An example, which you can try easily enough yourself:
l = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
for i in range(len(l)):
l.pop(i)
print("Length of list", len(l))
Do not confuse yourself by calling print(range(len(l)) in the for loop - this will give you an updated range, but is misleading. The range in the for loop is only called once, hence never updates while iterating.
A different approach
Instead of working with indices, try using zip() and building new lists, instead of changing existing ones.
def change(l1, l2):
new_l1 = []
new_l2 = []
for a, b in zip(l1, l2):
if len(a) == len(b):
continue # do nothing
elif len(a)<len(b):
new_l2.append(b)
elif len(a)>len(b):
new_l1.append(a)
return new_l1, new_l2
This approach, essentially, generates the same list you create using pop(), while avoiding usage of indices.
Note that zip() will stop once it reaches the end of the smaller of both iterables. If your lists may not be of equal length, and you'd like to iterate until the longest of both iterables is iterated over entirely, use zip_longest(). But I do not think this is what you need in this case.
Additional Notes
You would also run into a problem if you were to iterate over your list using the following code:
l = [i for i in range(10)]
for item in l:
l.remove(item)
>>>[1, 3, 5, 7, 9]
Essentially, it's not advisable to iterate over any iterable while changing it. This can result in anything from an Exception being thrown, to silent unexpected behaviour.
I'm aware you were avoiding this by looping over the copies, I just wanted to add this for posterity.

You can traverse the lists backwards, so that when you remove an item from the list the indices of the elements that you have not examined yet won't be affected
def f(a, b):
l = len(a) if len(a)<len(b) else len(b)
for i in range(l):
j = l-i-1
la, lb = len(a[j]), len(b[j])
if la<lb: a.pop(j)
elif lb<la: b.pop(j)
else: a.pop(j), b.pop(j)
return a, b
ps I staid faithful to your problem statement and not to your implementation re the comparison based on strings' lengths.

if you want to iterate over a list and want to empty it
but don't want pop index error use this:
lst = [ 1, 4, 56, 2, 4 , 12, 6, 89 ,11, 0]
i =0
while len(lst) != 0:
lst.pop(0)
i+=1
print(lst)

Related

recursive function to remove all multiples of n in a list

we were asked to make a recursive function that takes in a number, n, and a list and returns a list that doesn’t contain the multiples of n.
removeMultiples(2, [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9])
[3,5,7,9]
my attempt is
def removeMultiples(x, arr):
if not arr:
return []
else:
if arr[0] % x == 0:
del arr[0]
return removeMultiples(arr[1:], x)
return x, arr
where am i wrong? what should I change?
Don't use del. Just make a new list. The problem is stated as returning a list, not modifying the old one. You are on the right track using modulus
You can just use list iteration for this,
def removeMultiples(x, li):
return [l for l in li if l % x != 0]
print(removeMultiples(3, list(range(14))))
Result: [1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13]
The comments are correct in that deleting modifies the list so your counter no longer points to the correct element. If you really need to modify the existing list, the best way to is loop through the list backwards, so that you are just removing the last element and the indices of the other elements in the list do not change.
For a recursive function, this has the same result.
def removeMultiples(x, li):
if li:
return (li[:1] if li[0] % x else []) + removeMultiples(x, li[1:])
else:
return []

How can i know if a list is decreasing? (Python)

I am new to python and I have to do an exercise for classes. The exercises asks me to make a function which tells weather a list given is ordered decreasing or not (Giving back True or False)
I tried the following code:
def no_decreasing(list):
for num in len(list):
if list[num] <= list[num+1]:
check = bool(1)
else:
check = bool(0)
break
return check
It gives back an te error "int" object is not iterable in line 2, does anyone know why?
Note: don't use list as the parameter name (it's a builtin type), use something else. I'll use nums as the place of the list parameter rather than list.
The expression for num in len(nums) doesn't work because len(nums) is a single int. What you would want instead is for num in nums (which would iterate over each number in nums, or for index in len(range(nums)) (which would iterate over each valid index into nums).
Other options:
for i, num in enumerate(nums) -- i is the index, num is the value.
for num1, num2 in zip(nums, nums[1:]) -- num1 and num2 are two successive values from nums, obtained by zipping nums with a shifted version of itself.
Additional note: when you need a boolean literal, instead of bool(1) and bool(0) just use True and False!
You could also shortcut the entire problem by sorting the list in decreasing order and seeing if it's the same as the original list:
def is_decreasing(nums):
return nums == sorted(nums, reverse=True)
Well you are trying to iterate over indeces, so
for i in range(len(lst)): # never use "list" as a variable name
or rather
for i in range(len(lst)-1): # to avoid an index error for its right neighbor
would be appropriate. However, a better way would use zip
def non_decreasing(lst):
for a, b in zip(lst, lst[1:]):
if b < a:
return False
return True
A short-hand for that pattern is any or all:
def non_decreasing(lst):
return all(a <= b for a, b in zip(lst, lst[1:]))
# return not any(b < a for a, b in zip(lst, lst[1:]))
You are trying to get the index in the for loop, but you've made a semantic mistake:
for num in len(list):
# This does not work. It can not iterate through an integer.
len() function returns an integer. Your basically saying for num in 10, say if the list has 10 numbers.
What you want is the range function:
for num in range(0, len(list)):
This will loop from num=0 to num=0+len(list)-1.
Be careful though with if list[num] <= list[num+1]:, as the previous approach will make that line search for an index greater them your array size. As such, this is how you could fix your code:
for num in range(0, len(list)-1):
P.S.: There are other ways to solve that issue, but since it is a class exercise, I've focused on solving the issue you've had when iterating through an integer.
Others have pointed out using zip(lst, lst[1:]). This is undesirable for large lists, though, since you first have to make a copy of lst (minus the first element) before zip can produce the pairwise iterator that the for loop uses.
Instead, use two separate iterators, advancing the second one before passing it to zip.
def no_decreasing(lst):
i1 = iter(lst)
i2 = iter(lst)
next(i2)
return all(a >= b for a, b in zip(i1, i2))
# Or you can use map
# return all(map(operator.ge, i1, i2))

How to solve the error list index out of range ? (On python using pygame and sys) [duplicate]

I have written a simple python program
l=[1,2,3,0,0,1]
for i in range(0,len(l)):
if l[i]==0:
l.pop(i)
This gives me error 'list index out of range' on line if l[i]==0:
After debugging I could figure out that i is getting incremented and list is getting reduced.
However, I have loop termination condition i < len(l). Then why I am getting such error?
You are reducing the length of your list l as you iterate over it, so as you approach the end of your indices in the range statement, some of those indices are no longer valid.
It looks like what you want to do is:
l = [x for x in l if x != 0]
which will return a copy of l without any of the elements that were zero (that operation is called a list comprehension, by the way). You could even shorten that last part to just if x, since non-zero numbers evaluate to True.
There is no such thing as a loop termination condition of i < len(l), in the way you've written the code, because len(l) is precalculated before the loop, not re-evaluated on each iteration. You could write it in such a way, however:
i = 0
while i < len(l):
if l[i] == 0:
l.pop(i)
else:
i += 1
The expression len(l) is evaluated only one time, at the moment the range() builtin is evaluated. The range object constructed at that time does not change; it can't possibly know anything about the object l.
P.S. l is a lousy name for a value! It looks like the numeral 1, or the capital letter I.
You're changing the size of the list while iterating over it, which is probably not what you want and is the cause of your error.
Edit: As others have answered and commented, list comprehensions are better as a first choice and especially so in response to this question. I offered this as an alternative for that reason, and while not the best answer, it still solves the problem.
So on that note, you could also use filter, which allows you to call a function to evaluate the items in the list you don't want.
Example:
>>> l = [1,2,3,0,0,1]
>>> filter(lambda x: x > 0, l)
[1, 2, 3]
Live and learn. Simple is better, except when you need things to be complex.
What Mark Rushakoff said is true, but if you iterate in the opposite direction, it is possible to remove elements from the list in the for-loop as well. E.g.,
x = [1,2,3,0,0,1]
for i in range(len(x)-1, -1, -1):
if x[i] == 0:
x.pop(i)
It's like a tall building that falls from top to bottom: even if it is in the middle of collapse, you still can "enter" into it and visit yet-to-be-collapsed floors.
I think the best way to solve this problem is:
l = [1, 2, 3, 0, 0, 1]
while 0 in l:
l.remove(0)
Instead of iterating over list I remove 0 until there aren't any 0 in list
List comprehension will lead you to a solution.
But the right way to copy a object in python is using python module copy - Shallow and deep copy operations.
l=[1,2,3,0,0,1]
for i in range(0,len(l)):
if l[i]==0:
l.pop(i)
If instead of this,
import copy
l=[1,2,3,0,0,1]
duplicate_l = copy.copy(l)
for i in range(0,len(l)):
if l[i]==0:
m.remove(i)
l = m
Then, your own code would have worked.
But for optimization, list comprehension is a good solution.
The problem was that you attempted to modify the list you were referencing within the loop that used the list len(). When you remove the item from the list, then the new len() is calculated on the next loop.
For example, after the first run, when you removed (i) using l.pop(i), that happened successfully but on the next loop the length of the list has changed so all index numbers have been shifted. To a certain point the loop attempts to run over a shorted list throwing the error.
Doing this outside the loop works, however it would be better to build and new list by first declaring and empty list before the loop, and later within the loop append everything you want to keep to the new list.
For those of you who may have come to the same problem.
I am using python 3.3.5. The above solution of using while loop did not work for me. Even if i put print (i) after len(l) it gave me an error. I ran the same code in command line (shell)[ window that pops up when we run a function] it runs without error. What i did was calculated len(l) outside the function in main program and passed the length as a parameter. It worked. Python is weird sometimes.
I think most solutions talk here about List Comprehension, but if you'd like to perform in place deletion and keep the space complexity to O(1); The solution is:
i = 0
for j in range(len(arr)):
if (arr[j] != 0):
arr[i] = arr[j]
i +=1
arr = arr[:i]
x=[]
x = [int(i) for i in input().split()]
i = 0
while i < len(x):
print(x[i])
if(x[i]%5)==0:
del x[i]
else:
i += 1
print(*x)
Code:
while True:
n += 1
try:
DATA[n]['message']['text']
except:
key = DATA[n-1]['message']['text']
break
Console :
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "botnet.py", line 82, in <module>
key =DATA[n-1]['message']['text']
IndexError: list index out of range
I recently had a similar problem and I found that I need to decrease the list index by one.
So instead of:
if l[i]==0:
You can try:
if l[i-1]==0:
Because the list indices start at 0 and your range will go just one above that.

Python - Removing first two occurrences of element in list

The objective of this function is to remove the first two occurrences of n in a list.
Below is a code I had written but I still got it wrong after many hours. A friend advised me not to edit a list while iterating. However, I'm still stuck.
def remove_first_two(list,n):
if list == []:
return []
else:
count = 0
for ele in list:
if ele == n:
list.remove(ele)
count += 1
if count == 2:
break
return list
list = [1,2,2,3]
print(remove_first_two(list,2)) => [1,2,3] instead of [1,3]
Use list.remove twice with try-except. That will delete first two entries. Complexity O(n)
list_a = [1,2,3,4]
try:
list_a.remove(n)
list_a.remove(n)
# run a loop too, if it's more than 2
except:
pass
You can try find all indexes and del:
a = [1,2,3,2,3,2,4]
indices = [i for i, x in enumerate(a) if x == 2]
print(indices)
[1, 3, 5]
del a[indices[0]], a[indices[1]]
print(a)
[1, 3, 2, 2, 4]
First, don't use 'list' as its a key word in Python. Use something else, like 'alist'.
The code below does what you want and keeps the basic form of what you already have. You can of course also use the built-in .remove() method.
def remove_first_two(alist, n):
if alist == []:
return []
else:
count = 0
while count < 2:
for ele in alist:
if ele == n:
alist.remove(ele)
count += 1
return alist
alist = [1,2,2,3]
print(remove_first_two(alist,2)) # Output -> [1,3]
When your friend says "do not edit a list while iterating," he/she is right, and what he/she means is that you should create another list all together. What you are looking to do is the following:
def remove_first_two(list, n):
if list == []:
return []
else:
new_list = []
count = 0
for ele in list:
if ele == n:
if count >= 2:
new_list.append(ele)
count += 1
else:
new_list.append(ele)
return new_list
However, note that you can use use some built in functions to make your life much easier:
list.remove(x)
Remove the first item from the list whose value is equal to x. It raises a ValueError if there is no such item.
Therefore, you can more simply do:
def remove_first_two(list, n):
if list == []:
return []
for _ in range(2):
if n in list:
list.remove(n)
return list
Python updates the list if you change it while iterating.
In you test case with list = [1,2,2,3] when list[1] is deleted and Python updates list = [1,2,3]. Now Python understands you have iterated till index 1 and continues from index 2 which now contains 3. So Python encounters only one occurance of 2.
So heed your friends advice and do not edit list while iterating :)
Now you can use Python's in-built list.remove(element) to delete first ocuurence of a element. Repeat it 2 times for desired output.
Also O(n) with a single parse.
def remove_first_two(mylist,n):
counter = 0
def myfilter (i):
nonlocal counter,n
if counter > 2:
return True
else:
counter += 1
return (i != n)
return (list(filter(myfilter,mylist)))
This can also be done in python 3.8 using assignment expressions in a list comprehension:
data = [1,2,3,2,3,2,4]
count = 2
num = 2
[x for x in data if x != num or (count:=count-1) < 0]
Results:
[1, 3, 2, 2, 4]
Here is the reason why your program does not work:
When you remove an element, the for loop moves on to the next element, but by "moving on" it is actually skipping the element which now occupies the position of the deleted element. It skips the element right after the one you deleted.
The correct way to iterate over a list while you delete elements is making index progression explicit, by using a while loop instead of a for loop, and not increase the index when you delete an element:
i = 0
while i < len(my_list):
if condition:
my_list.pop(i)
else:
i += 1
However, none of this is necessary in your case! Notice that when you use my_list.remove(ele), you are not providing an index as you would with my_list.pop(i), so Python has to search for the first element that matches ele. Although remove will be slower than pop when used by themselves, here remove allows you not use any loops at all, simply do my_list.remove(n) twice!
Last touch: If your list has less than two elements matching n, one of the two my_list.remove(n) commands would return a ValueError. You can account for this exception, knowing that if it happens, your list is ready and requires no further action.
So the code you need is:
try:
my_list.remove(n)
my_list.remove(n)
except ValueError:
pass

Python - Searching index of lists in list containing one element

I have a list L of 4-length list
L = [[1,2,12,13],[2,3,13,14],...]
and two integers a and b which appear many times in the sublists. What I want is to find the index of the sublists in L which contain a AND b.
I wrote a little code
l=[]
for i in range(len(L)):
if L[i][0]==a or L[i][1]==a or L[i][2]==a or L[i][3]==a:
l.append([i] + L[i]) # I put the index in the first position.
# Now l is a list of 5-length lists.
# I do the same loop on that list.
r=[]
for i in range(len(l)):
if l[i][1]==b or l[i][2]==b or l[i][3]==b or l[i][4]==b:
r.append(i)
The index I am looking for are in the list r. However I am pretty sure there is another way to do it in Python since I barely know this language. Maybe if my variable L is something else than a list of lists it would be easier/faster, because I will call this procedure a lot in my main program. (len(L) is around 3000)
By the way I know that the number of index is between one and four included, so I could put some break but I don't know if it will be faster.
---------------- EDIT 1 ----------------
Change "a or b (or is inclusive)" to "a AND b" in the second sentence. I wrote a mistake about my goal.
You can do this:
r = [i for i,x in enumerate(L) if any(y in x for y in (a,b))]
enumerate will give you both indices and values in your list comprehension, and the any statement will tell you if either a or b are in x, which is a sublist in L
Try with
for index, item in enumerate(L):
if a in item or b in item:
r.append(index)
Use any() to test the sublists:
if any(a in subl for subl in L):
This tests each subl but exits the generator expression loop early if a match is found.
This does not, however, return the specific sublist that matched. You could use next() with a generator expression to find the first match:
matched = next((subl for subl in L if a in subl), None)
if matched is not None:
matched[1] += 1
where None is a default returned if the generator expression raises a StopIteration exception, or you can omit the default and use exception handling instead:
try:
matched = next(subl for subl in L if a in subl)
matched[1] += 1
except StopIteration:
pass # no match found
This kind of thing is what list comprehension is made for.
If you really want inclusive or -- then this is the list you want. In your code, currently, you've giving and.
result = [a_tuple for a_tuple in L if a in a_tuple or b in a_tuple]

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