Enumerate in Python

#python #beginners

Are you new to Python? Did you program in other languages before?

You may think the way to get the index is by creating a loop, getting the size of the array, creating an index variable, comparing the index variable to the condition and increasing it manually.. phew!

In the C programming language you get something like this:

int i = 0;
for (i = 0; i <= 10; i++){
    printf("%s\n", list[i]);

Very cryptic right!

For loop index in Python

There is a Pythonic way to create loops with an index, namely enumerate().

for index, value in enumerate(some_list):
    print(index, value)

To give you a full example with a list:

my_list = ['apple', 'banana', 'grapes', 'pear']
for c, value in enumerate(my_list):
    print(c, value)

# Output:
# 0 apple
# 1 banana
# 2 grapes
# 3 pear

This works for numeric lists too:

>>> b = [3,6,7,2,9]
>>> for index, value in enumerate(b):
...     print(f"At b[{index}] the value is {value}")
... 
At b[0] the value is 3
At b[1] the value is 6
At b[2] the value is 7
At b[3] the value is 2
At b[4] the value is 9
>>>