Adding item in front of a list

Skip Montanaro skip at pobox.com
Wed Apr 9 11:36:11 EDT 2003


    >> I would have thought that after l.insert(-1, 1), l would be
    >> [2, 3, 1, 4], but it doesn't work that way.

    Tim> Alas, list.insert() existed before sequence indices were
    Tim> generalized to give a "count from the right end" meaning to
    Tim> negative index values.  When the generalization happened, it
    Tim> appears that list.insert() was just overlooked.

    Tim> I'd like to change this.  If I did, how loudly would people scream?

No screams from here.  I don't think I've ever used list.insert() with an
index of anything but 0.

Skip





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