How to Access List Items in Python?

Python List – Access Items

To access list items individually, you can use index just like an array. You can also access a range of items in the list by giving range as index.

In this tutorial, we shall go through some examples, to understand how to access items in a Python list.

Sample Code Snippet

Following is a quick code snippet to access an item or sublist from a given list.

mylist[5]
mylist[2:7]
Run

If you would like to iterate through all the items of the list, you can refer: loop list items.

Example 1: Access a single item of Python List

You can use square brackets next to the array variable name with the index in between the brackets.

In the following example, we will create a Python list and then access 3rd item. Index of the 3rd item is 2, since index starts from 0.

Python Program

a = [52, 85, 41, 'sum', 'str', 3 + 5j, 6.8]

#access 3rd item with index 2
x = a[2]

print(x)
Run

Output

41

a[2] returns element at index 2 in the list a.

Example 2: Access a range of items in Python List

You can also get a sub-list or a range of items from the list by providing the range of index.

In the following example, we will create a Python list and then access a range of items from 2nd item until 5th item, three items in total excluding the last index.

Python Program

a = [52, 85, 41, 'sum', 'str', 3 + 5j, 6.8]

#access a range of items
x = a[1:4]

print(x)
Run

Output

[85, 41, 'sum']

Summary

To sum up this tutorial of Python Examples, we learned how to access one element of a list at an index, or a sublist using index range, with the help of well detailed example programs.