Python list - string formatting as list indices - python

Depending on a condition I need to get a value from one or another function. I'm trying to put it inside a simple If ... Else statement. I tried to use %s string formatting but it won't work. Below code, so it will become more clear what I try to do:
if condition:
item = my_list['%s']
else:
item = my_other_list['%s']
# now I do something with this value:
print item % 3
This way I tried to print 3rd value of one or other list if the condition was True of False. This returned an error about list indices being string. So I tried to put it inside int() what didn't help.
How should I do it? The problem is I get the value later than I declare what item is.
EDIT
I will add some more infos here:
I have a for loop, that goes through ~1000 elements and processes them. If the condition is True, it calls one function or another if false. Now, I don't want to check the same condition 1000 times, because I know it won't change during the time and would like to check it once and apply the method to all of the elements.
More code:
if self.dlg.comboBox_3.currentIndex == 0:
item = QCustomTableWidgetItem(str(round((sum(values['%s'])/len(values['%s'])),2)))
else:
item = QCustomTableWidgetItem(str(round(sum(values['%s'],2))))
for row in range(len(groups)):
group = QTableWidgetItem(str(groups[row]))
qTable.setItem(row,0,group)
qTable.setItem(row,1,item % row)
This is the actual code. Not the '%s' and '% row'. I used simplified before not to distract from the actual problem, but I think it's needed. I'm sorry if it wasn't a good decision.

You have a reasonably large misconception about how list slicing works. It will always happen at the time you call it, so inside your if loop itself Python will be trying to slice either of the lists by the literal string "%s", which can't possibly work.
There is no need to do this. You can just assign the list as the output from the if statement, and then slice that directly:
if condition:
list_to_slice = my_list
else:
list_to_slice = my_other_list
# now I do something with this value:
print list_to_slice[3]

Short answer:
'%s' is a string by definition, while a list index should be an integer by definition.
Use int(string) if you are sure the string can be an integer (if not, it will raise a ValueError)

A list is made up of multiple data values that are referenced by an indice.
So if i defined my list like so :
my_list = [apples, orange, peaches]
If I want to reference something in the list I do it like this
print(my_list[0])
The expected output for this line of code would be "apples".
To actually add something new to a list you need to use an inbuilt method of the list object, which looks something like this :
my_list.append("foo")
The new list would then look like this
[apples, orange, peaches, foo]
I hope this helps.

I'd suggest wrapping around a function like this:
def get_item(index, list1, list2)
if condition:
return list1[index]
else:
return list2[index]
print get_item(3)

Here is a compact way to do it:
source = my_list if condition else my_other_list
print(source[2])
This binds a variable source to either my_list or my_other_list depending on the condition. Then the 3rd element of the selected list is accessed using an integer index. This method has the advantage that source is still bound to the list should you need to access other elements in the list.
Another way, similar to yours, is to get the element directly:
index = 2
if condition:
item = my_list[index]
else:
item = my_other_list[index]
print(item)

Related

Append select dict keys to a list [duplicate]

I am trying to append objects to the end of a list repeatedly, like so:
list1 = []
n = 3
for i in range(0, n):
list1 = list1.append([i])
But I get an error like: AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'append'. Is this because list1 starts off as an empty list? How do I fix this error?
This question is specifically about how to fix the problem and append to the list correctly. In the original code, the reported error occurs when using a loop because .append returns None the first time. For why None is returned (the underlying design decision), see Why do these list operations return None, rather than the resulting list?.
If you have an IndexError from trying to assign to an index just past the end of a list - that doesn't work; you need the .append method instead. For more information, 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?.
If you want to append the same value multiple times, see Python: Append item to list N times.
append actually changes the list. Also, it takes an item, not a list. Hence, all you need is
for i in range(n):
list1.append(i)
(By the way, note that you can use range(n), in this case.)
I assume your actual use is more complicated, but you may be able to use a list comprehension, which is more pythonic for this:
list1 = [i for i in range(n)]
Or, in this case, in Python 2.x range(n) in fact creates the list that you want already, although in Python 3.x, you need list(range(n)).
You don't need the assignment operator. append returns None.
append returns None, so at the second iteration you are calling method append of NoneType. Just remove the assignment:
for i in range(0, n):
list1.append([i])
Mikola has the right answer but a little more explanation. It will run the first time, but because append returns None, after the first iteration of the for loop, your assignment will cause list1 to equal None and therefore the error is thrown on the second iteration.
I personally prefer the + operator than append:
for i in range(0, n):
list1 += [[i]]
But this is creating a new list every time, so might not be the best if performance is critical.
Note that you also can use insert in order to put number into the required position within list:
initList = [1,2,3,4,5]
initList.insert(2, 10) # insert(pos, val) => initList = [1,2,10,3,4,5]
And also note that in python you can always get a list length using method len()
Like Mikola said, append() returns a void, so every iteration you're setting list1 to a nonetype because append is returning a nonetype. On the next iteration, list1 is null so you're trying to call the append method of a null. Nulls don't have methods, hence your error.
use my_list.append(...)
and do not use and other list to append as list are mutable.

Search tuple elements within in list

I have a list in Python as
list_data = [('a','b',5),('aa','bb',50)]
and some variables:
a = ('a','b','2')
c = ('aaa','bbb','500')
Now how can I search if a is already there in list_data?
If yes add 2 to the value of a, if not append to list_data?
The result should be as
list_data = [('a','b',7),('aa','bb',50),('aaa','bbb','500')]
Actually, this question is a good way to several demonstrate Pythonic ways of doing things. So lets see what we can do.
In order to check if something is in python list you can just use operator in:
if a in list_data:
do_stuff()
But what you ask is a bit different. You want to do something like a search by multiple keys, if I understand correctly. In this case you can 'trim' your tuple by discarding last entry.
Slicing is handy for this:
value_trimmed = value[:-1]
Now you can make a list of trimmed tuples:
list_trimmed = []
for a in list_data:
list_trimmed.append(a[:-1])
And then search there:
if a[:-1] in list_trimmed:
do_smth()
This list can be constructed in a less verbose way using list_comprehension:
list_trimmed = [item[:-1] for item in list_data]
To find where your item exactly is you can use index() method of list:
list_trimmed.index(a[:-1])
This will return index of a[:-1] first occurrence in list_trimmed or throw if it cant be found. We can avoid explicitly checking if item is in the list, and do the insertion only if the exception is caught.
Your full code will look like this:
list_data = [('a','b',5), ('aa','bb',50)]
values_to_find = [('a','b','2'), ('aaa','bbb','500')]
list_trimmed = [item[:-1] for item in list_data]
for val in values_to_find:
val_trimmed = val[:-1]
try:
ind = list_trimmed.index(val_trimmed)
src_tuple = list_data[ind]
# we can't edit tuple inplace, since they are immutable in python
list_data[ind] = (src_tuple[0], src_tuple[1], src_tuple[2]+2)
except ValueError:
list_data.append(val)
print list_data
Of course, if speed or memory-efficiency is your main concern this code is not very appropriate, but you haven't mentioned these in your question, and that is not what python really about in my opinion.
Edit:
You haven't specified what happens when you check for ('aaa','bbb','500') second time - should we use the updated list and increment matching tuple's last element, or should we stick to the original list and insert another copy?
If we use updated list, it is not clear how to handle incrementing string '500' by 2 (we can convert it to integer, but you should have constructed your query appropriately in the first place).
Or maybe you meant add last element of tuple being searched to the tuple in list if found ? Please edit your question to make it clear.

Python: User input as a list index

I am trying to use user input as an index for a list, but I keep getting the error "TypeError: list indices must be integers, not tuple." Here is what I have:
def sort(j, k):
sublist = list[j, k]
print sublist
sorted = sublist.sort
print sorted
operation = raw_input()
sort(operation[5], operation[7])
The user is supposed to input
SORT 3 5
and a subset of the original list will be sorted.
Your (immediate) problem is at this line:
sublist = list[j, k]
Presumably list is a list of items1. When you do somelist[a, b], python sees something equivalent to somelist[(a, b)]. So, you can see, you're indexing somelist with a tuple (which doesn't work). Chances are that you want a slice. In that case, you'll do:
sublist = list[j:k]
Even after making this change however, you'll still have problems -- Notably, j and k in your code are of type str and lists want to be indexed/sliced with integers (or None...)2. So, now we have:
sublist = list[int(j):int(k)]
At this point, you might stop seeing errors, but you won't see the results you want which brings us to the next problem.
sorted = sublist.sort
Here you're just assigning a bound method to a name. You're not actually sorting anything. If you want to sort the sublist (in place), you'd do:
sublist.sort()
print(sublist)
If you are ok with sorting it out of place, you can use the builtin sorted function (provided you haven't named something else sorted ;-)
print(sorted(sublist))
1Note, it is generally accepted that naming a variable the same thing as a builtin type can lead to hard to read and debug code :-).
2While we're at it, I might mention there is a better way to chunk up your string -- You can .split it. e.g. operation.split() will give you ['SORT', '5', '7'] rather than needing to make assumptions about the input and indexing the input string.
You have a few problems here:
Your function is called sort, which is the name of a built-in method.
You are not calling the method in this line sorted = sublist.sort (its missing ()).
You are giving each letter from the input as an argument to your function.
This: list[j,k] is what is causing your problem, because j,k is a tuple.
sort is in an in-place operation, so it will return None, which is what you will end up printing.
To fix these issues:
def my_sorter(j, k): # Changed method name
sublist = my_list[int(j):int(k)] # You need j:k
sublist.sort() # Note, no return value, because its in-place
print sublist
user_input = raw_input('Please enter the indices: ')
j,k = user_input.split()
my_sorter(j,k)

finding first item in a list whose first item in a tuple is matched

I have a list of several thousand unordered tuples that are of the format
(mainValue, (value, value, value, value))
Given a main value (which may or may not be present), is there a 'nice' way, other than iterating through every item looking and incrementing a value, where I can produce a list of indexes of tuples that match like this:
index = 0;
for destEntry in destList:
if destEntry[0] == sourceMatch:
destMatches.append(index)
index = index + 1
So I can compare the sub values against another set, and remove the best match from the list if necessary.
This works fine, but just seems like python would have a better way!
Edit:
As per the question, when writing the original question, I realised that I could use a dictionary instead of the first value (in fact this list is within another dictionary), but after removing the question, I still wanted to know how to do it as a tuple.
With list comprehension your for loop can be reduced to this expression:
destMatches = [i for i,destEntry in enumerate(destList) if destEntry[0] == sourceMatch]
You can also use filter()1 built in function to filter your data:
destMatches = filter(lambda destEntry:destEntry[0] == sourceMatch, destList)
1: In Python 3 filter is a class and returns a filter object.

Python - List not converting to Tuple inorder to Sort

def mkEntry(file1):
for line in file1:
lst = (line.rstrip().split(","))
print("Old", lst)
print(type(lst))
tuple(lst)
print(type(lst)) #still showing type='list'
sorted(lst, key=operator.itemgetter(1, 2))
def main():
openFile = 'yob' + input("Enter the year <Do NOT include 'yob' or .'txt' : ") + '.txt'
file1 = open(openFile)
mkEntry(file1)
main()
TextFile:
Emma,F,20791
Tom,M,1658
Anthony,M,985
Lisa,F,88976
Ben,M,6989
Shelly,F,8975
and I get this output:
IndexError: string index out of range
I am trying to convert the lst to Tuple from List. So I will able to order the F to M and Smallest Number to Largest Numbers. In around line 7, it's still printing type list instead of type tuple. I don't know why it's doing that.
print(type(lst))
tuple(lst)
print(type(lst)) #still showing type='list'
You're not changing what lst refers to. You create a new tuple with tuple(lst) and immediately throw it away because you don't assign it to anything. You can do:
lst = tuple(lst)
Note that this will not fix your program. Notice that your sort operation is happening once per line of your file, which is not what you want. Try collecting each line into one sequence of tuples and then doing the sort.
Firstly, you are not saving the tuple you created anywhere:
tup = tuple(lst)
Secondly, there is no point in making it a tuple before sorting it - in fact, a list could be sorted in place as it's mutable, while a tuple would need another copy (although that's fairly cheap, the items it contains aren't copied).
Thirdly, the IndexError has nothing to do with whether it's a list or tuple, nor whether it is sorted. It most likely comes from the itemgetter, because there's a list item that doesn't have three entries in turn - for instance, the strings "F" or "M".
Fourthly, the sort you're doing, but not saving anywhere, is done on each individual line, not the table of data. Considering this means you're comparing a name, a number, and a gender, I rather doubt it's what you intended.
It's completely unclear why you're trying to convert data types, and the code doesn't match the structure of the data. How about moving back to the overview plan and sorting out what you want done? It could well be something like Python's csv module could help considerably.

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