Can someone explain why this works?

Question

So I know this code works but I don't understand how it does:

def loopy(items):
    for item in items:
        if item[0] == "a":
            continue
        print(item)

Shouldn't it be:

def loopy(items):
    for item in items:
        if items[0] == "a":
            continue
        print(item)

items is the list(array) and item is the variable holding the value for each index and as such isn't a list so how does this work, I'm so confused.

Answer 1 · 2016-03-23T19:51:50Z

March 23, 2016 7:51pm

items[0] is the first element of the list passed in as an argument. It will have the same value for the entire function execution.

item[0] is the first character of the loop variable item. item points to each successive element in the argument items as the loop iterates over items.

A string offset and slicing notation uses the same index notation as a list.

Mixing these concepts, you can use items[0][0] to get the first character of the first word in the wordlist items.

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Nathan McGinley

Nathan McGinley

Can someone explain why this works?

1 Answer

Chris Freeman

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Nathan McGinley

Nathan McGinley

mykolash

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