The Python Journey - Enumerate

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Enumerate

The enumerate function is useful for obtaining a counter for any loop.

For example, consider this iteration of a tuple:

names = ("Darren", "Josh", "Julie")
for name in names:
    print(name)

Output:

Darren
Josh
Julie

We can wrap the iterable inside enumerate(), and then add a variable to store the current iteration count:

names = ("Darren", "Josh", "Julie")
for i, name in enumerate(names):
    print(f"{i}: {name}")

Output:

0: Darren
1: Josh
2: Julie

Thus, using enumerate has given us a counter, which starts at 0 by default. We can change the start value by adding a second parameter to enumerate(), i.e. start=some_value. For example:

names = ("Darren", "Josh", "Julie")
for i, name in enumerate(names, start=1):
    print(f"{i}: {name}")

Output:

1: Darren
2: Josh
3: Julie

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