python list index - an easy question

[alister]

On Sun, 18 Dec 2016 16:21:20 +0000, BartC wrote:

> On 18/12/2016 10:59, Paul Götze wrote:
>> Hi John,
>>
>> there is a nice short article by E. W. Dijkstra about why it makes
>> sense to start numbering at zero (and exclude the upper given bound)
>> while slicing a list. Might give a bit of additional understanding.
>>
>> http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/ewd08xx/EWD831.PDF
> 
> (This from somebody who apparently can't use a typewriter?!)
> 
> I don't know if the arguments there are that convincing. Both lower
> bounds of 0 and 1 are useful; some languages will use 0, some 1, and
> some can have any lower bound.
> 
> But a strong argument for using 1 is that in real life things are
> usually counted from 1 (and measured from 0).
> 
> So if you wanted a simple list giving the titles of the chapters in a
> book or on a DVD, on the colour of the front doors for each house in a
> street, usually you wouldn't be able to use element 0.
> 
> As for slice notation, I tend to informally use (not for any particulr
> language) A..B for an inclusive range, and A:N for a range of length N
> starting from A.
> 
> In Python you can also have a third operand for a range, A:B:C, which
> can mean that B is not necessarily one past the last in the range, and
> that the A <= i < B condition in that paper is no longer quite true.
> 
> In fact, A:B:-1 corresponds to A >= i > B, which I think is the same as
> condition (b) in the paper (but backwards), rather (a) which is
> favoured.
> 
> Another little anomaly in Python is that when negative indices are used,
> it suddenly switches to 1-based indexing! Or least, when -index is
> considered:
> 
>    x = [-4,-3,-2,-1]
> 
>    print x[-1]       # -1  Notice the correspondence here...
>    print x[-2]       # -2
> 
>    x = [1, 2, 3, 4]
> 
>    print x[1]        # 2   ...and the lack of it here print x[2]       
>    # 3


as I said earlier
take the indicates as being the spaces between the elements & it makes 
much more sense


-- 
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	Fuller bust man.