List Methods and Slicing

Lists in Python are powerful — not only can you store multiple items, but you can also change, extend, and extract parts of them.

Let’s look at two key skills every analyst needs when working with lists:

• Using list methods to update content
• Using slicing to access sections of a list

List methods let you modify the contents easily. A few beginner-friendly methods include:

• .append() – adds an item to the end
• .insert() – adds an item at a specific index
• .remove() – deletes the first matching item
• .pop() – removes an item by index
• .sort() – sorts the list in place

Slicing allows you to take parts of a list by specifying a start and stop index.

Copy
numbers[1:4]  # Gets items from index 1 to 3 (not including 4)

You can also use:

• [:] – to copy the whole list
• [-3:] – to get the last three items
• [::2] – to get every second item

These techniques make it easier to work with subsets of data.