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Python Python Collections (Retired) Slices Slice Functions

Posted by Bennett Golden
Bennett Golden
1,462 Points

python slicing

I am having a really tough time solving this challenge. It wants me to get the first and last 4 items of a list sliced out, but not have them be separate lists. The little hint when I get it wrong says it wants to get back [1, 2, 3, 4, 46, 47, 48, 49]. How do I get that back?

slices.py 
def first_4(list):
  return list[:4]
def odds(list):
  return list[1::2]
def first_and_last_4(list):
  return list[:4], return list[46:]
Bennett Golden
Bennett Golden
1,462 Points

nevermind, guys. I figured it out. Apparently there is this handy thing called "+" ... :-P

1 Answer

Sean T. Unwin
Sean T. Unwin
28,690 Points
Sean T. Unwin
Sean T. Unwin
28,690 Points

We are unable to return something more than once from a function, therefore we may only have 1 return statement.

Since we have 2 steps in this function: 1) Get the first 4 items in a list and 2) Get the last 4 items in a list.

One way to do this would be to declare a variable as an iterable for step 1. Following that we could use extend to include the last 4 items for step 2. Finally, when we return that we should have our first 4 and last 4.

... or you could simply use a + to join the 2 then return that. ;-)