object's list index

[Iain King]

Iain King wrote:
> William Meyer wrote:
> > hi,
> >
> >     I need to get the index of an object in a list. I know that no two objects
> > in the list are the same, but objects might evaluate as equal. for example
> >
> > list = [obj1, obj2, obj3, obj4, obj5]
> > for object in list:
> >     objectIndex = list.index(object)
> >     print objectIndex
> >
> > prints 0, 1, 2, 3, 2 instead of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 because obj3 == obj5. I could loop
> > through the list a second time comparing id()'s
> >
> > for object in list:
> >     objectIndex = 0
> >     for i in list:
> >         if id(object) == id(i):
> >             break
> >         objectIndex += 1
> >     print objectIndex
> >
> > but that seems like a real ugly pain. Somewhere, someplace python is keeping
> > track of the current index in list, does anyone know how to access it? Or have
> > any other suggestions?
>
> Um, one of us is being really really dense today :)  I hope it's not
> me...
>  what's wrong with:
>
> i = 0
> for object in list:
>     objectIndex = i
>     print objectIndex
>     i += 1
>
> Iain

Reading it again, I'm thinking it probably is me...

If you aren't looking them up sequentially then I think your second
example is the only way.  You can make it a little prettier by using
'object is i' rather than 'id(object) == id(i)'.
I think python only stores lists one way - i.e. each index maps to it's
value, but no backwards trace is kept from value to index.

Iain