What's an elegant way to test for list index existing?

[Alister]

On Fri, 28 Sep 2018 19:00:29 +0100, Chris Green wrote:

> I have a list created by:-
> 
>     fld = shlex.split(ln)
> 
> It may contain 3, 4 or 5 entries according to data read into ln. What's
> the neatest way of setting the fourth and fifth entries to an empty
> string if they don't (yet) exist? Using 'if len(fld) < 4:' feels clumsy
> somehow.

how about simply
adding 2 or more null entries to the list then slicing?

string = "a b c"
a=string.split()
(a+['',''])[0:5]







-- 
QOTD:
	If you're looking for trouble, I can offer you a wide selection.