Why can't I add the index to the end of the print for-in loop?

Question

I'm not sure why the list isn't printing the for-in loop, where I added the index at the end of my print for-in loop. Why doesn't this work?

continents.py

continents = [
    'Asia',
    'South America',
    'North America',
    'Africa',
    'Europe',
    'Antarctica',
    'Australia',
]

print("Continents:")
for continent in continents:
    print("* " + continents[0, 3, 5, 6])

Answer 1 · 2021-04-23T14:27:09Z

April 23, 2021 2:27pm

Hi Auceanne Richer ! When you pass something into a list (like my_list[something]), it can only be an integer or a slice. What you have passed into the list right now is a tuple (which you will learn about later if you're on the Python track). This will cause its own error.

Let me break down what happens in your loop. If I print continents, I am printing out the whole list equal to the number of items in the list.

continents = [
    'Asia',
    'South America',
    'North America',
    'Africa',
    'Europe',
    'Antarctica',
    'Australia',
]

for continent in continents:
    print(continents)

# console
>>> [ 'Asia', 'South America', 'North America', 'Africa', 'Europe', 'Antarctica', 'Australia',]
>>> [ 'Asia', 'South America', 'North America', 'Africa', 'Europe', 'Antarctica', 'Australia',]
>>> [ 'Asia', 'South America', 'North America', 'Africa', 'Europe', 'Antarctica', 'Australia',]
>>> [ 'Asia', 'South America', 'North America', 'Africa', 'Europe', 'Antarctica', 'Australia',]
>>> [ 'Asia', 'South America', 'North America', 'Africa', 'Europe', 'Antarctica', 'Australia',]
>>> [ 'Asia', 'South America', 'North America', 'Africa', 'Europe', 'Antarctica', 'Australia',]
>>> [ 'Asia', 'South America', 'North America', 'Africa', 'Europe', 'Antarctica', 'Australia',]

This is because a loop repeats equal to the number of items in the list (or other iterable) you give it. Here the iterable is the continents list which has 7 items in it, so the loop repeats 7 times and does whatever is inside of the loop 7 times.

What the challenge wants you to do is print out a bulleted list of all of the continents using a loop. If we instead print out continent instead of continents, this is what you'll see.

continents = [
    'Asia',
    'South America',
    'North America',
    'Africa',
    'Europe',
    'Antarctica',
    'Australia',
]

for continent in continents:
    print(continent)

# console
>>> Asia
>>> South America
>>> North America
>>> Africa
>>> Europe
>>> Antartica
>>> Australia

Now, you get each continent printed out to the console because continent changes each loop to be the next item in the loop. Then you just need to add '* ' + to get them as bullets.

The second task asks you to only print out continents that start with 'A'. In your loop, continent is a string because you have accessed an individual string from the list. With strings, you can use index notation to determine what the first letter is, like this:

continents = [
    'Asia',
    'South America',
    'North America',
    'Africa',
    'Europe',
    'Antarctica',
    'Australia',
]

for continent in continents:
    print('* ' + continent[0])

# console
>>> * A
>>> * S
>>> * N
>>> * A
>>> * E
>>> * A
>>> * A

Now all you need to do is print out the continent only if the first letter is 'A'.

continents = [
    'Asia',
    'South America',
    'North America',
    'Africa',
    'Europe',
    'Antarctica',
    'Australia',
]

for continent in continents:
    # if first letter equals 'A'
        print('* ' + continent)

Hopefully, this helps. Let me know if you're still stuck

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Auceanne Richer

Auceanne Richer

Why can't I add the index to the end of the print for-in loop?

1 Answer

Megan Amendola

Megan Amendola