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Indexing

🟨🐍 Technique Card: Python Indexing

🧠 What This Teaches

How to access specific items in a list using index numbers, and how to go deeper into lists inside lists or tuples inside lists using double indexing like [0][1].

🧰 You Will Use

  • [] square brackets
  • Index numbers starting from 0
  • Lists and tuples

🎯 Main Concept

Python lists are ordered collections, and we use index numbers to get items.

fruits = ["apple", "banana", "cherry"]
print(fruits[0])  # "apple"
  • The first item is at index 0
  • The second is at index 1, and so on.

🧱 Lists Inside Lists (Nested Lists)

my_lists = [[1, 2], [3, 4]]
print(my_lists[0])     # [1, 2]
print(my_lists[0][1])  # 2
  • my_lists[0] = the first list: [1, 2]
  • my_lists[0][1] = the second item in that inner list: 2

🍇 Tuples Inside Lists

mixed = [("apple", "banana"), ("carrot", "pea")]
print(mixed[1][0])  # "carrot"
  • mixed[1] = ("carrot", "pea")
  • mixed[1][0] = "carrot"

💡 Try This!

animals = [["dog", "cat"], ["lion", "tiger"]]

print(animals[1][1])  # tiger
print(animals[0][0])  # dog

🛠️ Common Mistake

⚠️ Don't forget Python starts counting at 0, not 1!

🎲 Practise!

Try making your own:

favourite_things = [["rainbows", "sunsets"], ["ice cream", "cake"]]

Then try printing the second thing in the first list.

🔗 Linked Cards

Watch the video