Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

Python Introducing Lists Using Lists Continental

Spencer Lebel
Spencer Lebel
3,125 Points
Posted by Spencer Lebel
Spencer Lebel
3,125 Points

Printing Values out of a List based on the character they start with

I know my code is terribly wrong, but I do not know how to combine the indexing lesson with the iteration lesson to print values based on the character they start with. I think I know how to pull the characters from the list with indexing... For example continents[0] should be "A"... correct? Or it might be the full continent name. Either way, I don't know how to build a formula to look at the starting character and build a list conditional on that character. Please help! Thanks

continents.py 
continents = [
    'Asia',
    'South America',
    'North America',
    'Africa',
    'Europe',
    'Antarctica',
    'Australia',
]
# Your code here
print("Name")
for name in continents:
    print("* " + name)
continents[0,2,5,6]
print("continents")
Brandon White
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
Brandon White
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Graduate 34,660 Points

Hi Spencer,

Maybe this will help you to get on the right track. A string is essentially a list of characters. So to target the first letter of a string, you can do the following:

first_name = "Brandon"

first_letter = first_name[0]

print(first_letter) # output: 'B'

1 Answer

Peter Vann
Peter Vann
36,425 Points
Peter Vann
Peter Vann
36,425 Points

Hi Spencer!

This passes the first challenge:

continents = [
    'Asia',
    'South America',
    'North America',
    'Africa',
    'Europe',
    'Antarctica',
    'Australia',
]
# Your code here
for continent in continents:
    print("* " + continent)

This passes the second:

continents = [
    'Asia',
    'South America',
    'North America',
    'Africa',
    'Europe',
    'Antarctica',
    'Australia',
]
# Your code here
for continent in continents:
    if continent[0] == "A":
        print("* " + continent)

Hopefully, these examples coupled with Brandon's excellent previous example will make it all more clear.

I hope that helps.

Stay safe and happy coding!