Creating a list with holes

[Roy Smith]

In article <mailman.4871.1388794533.18130.python-list at python.org>,
 Larry Martell <larry.martell at gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> Thanks, but I know all that about dicts. I need to use a list for
> compatibility with existing code.

Generalizing what I think the situation is, "A dict is the best data 
structure for the parsing phase, but I need a list later to hand off to 
legacy interfaces".

No problem.  Parse the data using a dict, then convert the dict to a 
list later.  I haven't been following all the details here, but just 
wanted to point out that using different data structures to hold the 
same data at different phases of a program is a perfectly reasonable 
approach.