Containers and Python Type Jargon

Learn about different containers used to store data and different terms used for Python types.

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Container types

Container types typically refer to multiple values stored together. Here are some examples of different basic types:

  • A list is an indexed collection of similar/dissimilar entities, e.g., [10, 20, 30, 20, 30, 40, 50, 10], ['She', 'sold', 10, 'shells'].
  • A tuple is an immutable collection, e.g., ('Sanjay', 34, 4500.55), ('Let Us Python', 350, 195.00).
  • A set is a collection of unique values, e.g., {10, 20, 30, 40}, {'Sanjay', 34, 45000}.
  • A dictionary is a collection of key-value pairs, with unique keys enclosed in ' ', e.g., {'ME101' : 'Strength of materials', 'EE101' : 'Electronics'}.

Values in a list and tuple can be accessed using their position in the list or tuple. Values in a set can be accessed using a for loop (discussed in the next chapters). Values in a dictionary can be accessed using a key. This is shown in the following program:

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