How to get the first X Elements of a List in Python

When you are working with lists in Python, a common operation is to get the first X elements of the list.
In this post, we're going to learn the best way to do this.
Get the first X elements of a list
To begin, let's start with our example list:
numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
To get the first elements of a list, we can use the [0:X]
slicing syntax.
What this means is that whatever number you put in the brackets as X
, it will return the first X elements of the list.
Let's try it out using the value of 3
in the brackets:
numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
first = numbers[0:3]
print(first)
[1, 2, 3]
This syntax works because we are telling the Python compiler to first start with the element at the 0
index (the first element in the list), and then to stop slicing at the 3
index (the fourth element in the list).
Simply pass in the number of elements you want to return where X
is and you'll get the first X elements of the list.
Conclusion
In this post, we learned about the best way to get the first X elements of a list.
Simply make use of the built-in [0:X]
slicing syntax to get what you need.
Thanks for reading and happy coding!
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