Have you ever needed to get the last element of a list in Python, but weren’t sure of the best way to do it? There are several different methods you can use. In this article, we will discuss these methods in detail and provide code examples for each. Just to be real quick, we can Read More Python, Python Tutorial, Python List Examples Spark By {Examples}
Have you ever needed to get the last element of a list in Python, but weren’t sure of the best way to do it? There are several different methods you can use. In this article, we will discuss these methods in detail and provide code examples for each.
Just to be real quick, we can get the last element of a Python list by negative indexing, the pop() method, list slicing, and list comprehension. We will give examples of each method.
1. Quick Examples of Getting Last Element of List
These quick examples give a high-level overview of the methods that can be used to get the last element of a list. These examples will give a quick introduction to each method we will discuss each detail later on.
# Quick examples of getting last element of list
# Using negative indexing to get the last element
my_list = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
last_element = my_list[-1]
print(last_element)
# Using the pop() method
my_list = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
last_element = my_list.pop()
print(last_element)
# Using list slicing to get the last element
my_list = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
last_element = my_list[-1:]
print(last_element)
# Using a list comprehension to get the last element
my_list = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
last_element = [x for x in my_list if x == my_list[-1]][0]
print(last_element)
2. Get Last Element of the List using Indexing
In Python, you can get the last element by using -1 as the index value of the list. This is the most common method for getting the last element of a list in Python.
Lists in Python are zero-indexed, which means that the first element has an index of 0, the second element has an index of 1, and so on. To get the last element of a list using indexing, you should use index -1. This index refers to the last element of the list.
# Get last element of the list
my_list = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
last_element = my_list[-1]
print(last_element)
# Output:
# 5
3. Get Last 2 Elements of the List
One of the simplest ways to get the last two elements of a list is to use negative indexing with a list slice. we use negative indexing to access the second-to-last element of the list with the index -2, and then slice the list from that index to the end of the list using the slice notation -2:.
See the following example:
# Get Last 2 Elements of the List
last_two_elements = my_list[-2:]
print(last_two_elements)
# Output
# [4,5]
4. Using pop() to Get Last Element
The pop() method is a commonly used method in Python lists that removes and returns the last element of a list. We can use this method to get the last element of a list.
# Using pop()
last_element = my_list.pop()
print(last_element)
# Output:
# 5
The pop() method modifies the original list, so we should only use this method when it is okay to update the original list.
# Using pop()
last_element = my_list.pop()
print(last_element)
print(my_list)
# Output:
# 5
# [1, 2, 3, 4]
5. List Slicing Get Last Element as a List
If we want to extract only the last element of a list using slicing, we can specify an index of -1 as the starting index and leave the end index unspecified.
# List slicing to get last element
last_element = my_list[-1:]
print(last_element)
# Output:
# [5]
We use the [-1:] syntax to extract a subset of the list starting from the last element and going all the way to the end of the list. This syntax returns a new list with only one element, which is the last element of the original list.
List slicing can be less efficient than using indexing or the pop() method, especially when dealing with large lists. This is because list slicing creates a new list, which can take up additional memory and processing time.
6. List comprehension – Last Element of List
To get the last element of a list using list comprehension, we can create a new list containing only the last element of the original list.
last_element = [x for x in my_list if x == my_list[-1]]
print(last_element)
# Output:
# [5]
We use list comprehension to create a new list containing only the last element of the original list. it allows us to perform additional transformations or filters on the data, if needed.
7. Fastest Method – indexing, pop(), and list slicing
In the above section, we have discussed all these three methods. Let’s draw a run time comparison between the these methods. On my machine the pop() and indexing method almost take the same time. while the list slicing method took twice time as of the other two.
import timeit
# Using Indexing
def index_method():
my_list = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
last_element = my_list[-1]
# Using pop() method
def pop_method():
my_list = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
last_element = my_list.pop()
# Using list slicing
def slice_method():
my_list = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
last_element = my_list[-1:]
print(“indexing :”, timeit.timeit(index_method, number=1000000))
print(“pop() :”, timeit.timeit(pop_method, number=1000000))
print(“list slicing :”, timeit.timeit(slice_method, number=1000000))
Yields the following output:
# Output:
indexing : 2.889351800084114
pop() : 3.3347120999824256
list slicing : 4.0966389999957755
8. Summary and Conclusion
We have covered multiple ways to get the last element of a list in Python. Among them we learned a simple indexing approach, using the pop() method, list slicing, and list comprehension. If you have any queries please feel free to leave a comment below.
Happy coding!