How to Solve IndexError: List index out of Range in Python

In Python, you will get an error when you try to access an index in a list that is out of range.

This is because a list is a collection of items, and the index is the position of the item in the list, so if you try to access an index that is out of the range of the list, you will get an error.

In this post, we'll learn how we can avoid getting the IndexError: list index out of range error.

How to avoid the IndexError error

Before we learn how to avoid it, let's take a look at an example code that will result in the error:

PYTHON
list = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

print(list[5])

This results in the following output:

PYTHON
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "main.py", line 3, in <module>
    print(list[5])
IndexError: list index out of range

Ultimately, you just need to ensure that the number you're using to access the list does not exceed the length of the list, minus one.

Let's look at code that calculates the highest possible index that is safe to use:

PYTHON
list = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

max = len(list) - 1

print(max)

BASH
4

Now, let's try to access the item at the highest index:

PYTHON
print(list[max])

BASH
5

It worked, we did not get an error. In general, you are free to access any index 0 or above, and below the highest index, which in this case we set to the variable named max.

Conclusion

In this post, we learned how to avoid the IndexError: list index out of range error.

The solution is to ensure the index is not out of the range of the list, which is from 0 to max, where max is the length of the list minus one.

Hopefully, you've found this post helpful! Happy coding!

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