What's the difference between sets, lists, tuples, and dictionaries in python?
Part of the "coder 101" series. A description of data structures in python.
Just a quick refresher to clarify differences:
- Sets, lists, tuples, and dictionaries are all data structures that offer various ways to organize and store data. The difference is in the details.
- Lists are an ordered and mutable collection of elements(meaning that their values can be modified after creation).
- Elements in a list can be any data type (mixed is permitted).
- Duplicates are allowed
- Lists are represented using square brackets
[]
- Tuples are an ordered and immutable collection of elements (meaning that their values cannot be modified after creation).
- Elements can be of any type (mixed is permitted).
- Duplicates are allowed.
- Tuples are represented using parentheses
()
- Sets are unordered collection of unique elements
- Elements are not stored in a specific order
- Duplicates are automatically removed
- Sets are represented using curly braces
{}
- Dictionaries are an unordered collection of key-value pairs.
- Keys must be unique and are immutable (meaning that their values cannot be modified after creation).
- Values can be any data type.
- Python accesses elements using keys, not indexes/position.
- Dictionaries are represented using curly braces
{}
with colons:
to separate keys and values.