Slicing in Python

David Y.

—May 15, 2023

The Problem

How does slicing work in Python? What do the following snippets of code do?

1. my_list[:]
2. my_list[:-1]
3. my_list[::2]
4. my_list[1:9:3]

The Solution

Python’s slice notation provides a quick way for programmers to extract sections of sequences, such as lists and strings. The syntax for a simple slice is as follows:

my_list = [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]

start = 1
stop = 5

sublist = my_list[start:stop] # i.e. my_list[1:5]

print(sublist) # will print "[1, 2, 3, 4]"

Sequences in Python are 0-indexed, and slices are exclusive of the stop value, so our code above has produced a sublist containing the values at indices 1 through 4.

If we leave out start, the slice will begin at the start of the list, and if we leave out stop, the slice will end at the end of the list. Therefore, if we leave out both, we’ll get a copy of the whole list, as below:

my_list = [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]

sublist = my_list[:] # code snippet (1)

print(sublist) # will print "[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]"

If we use a negative number as a slice index, Python will count backwards from the end of the sequence. Index -1 refers to the last element and -2 to the second last element. This is useful when dealing with sequences of unknown length. For example, we could use this code to extract the last three elements of our list:

my_list = [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]

sublist = my_list[-3:]

print(sublist) # will print "[7, 8, 9]"

We can also get a sublist containing all but the last element of my_list:

my_list = [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]

sublist = my_list[:-1] # code snippet (2)

print(sublist) # will print "[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]"

In addition to start and stop, the slice operator can take an optional step argument, which allows us to skip some elements of our list. For example, we can use blank start and stop arguments with a step of 2 to create a sublist with all the values at even indices.

my_list = [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]

sublist = my_list[::2] # code snippet (3)

print(sublist) # will print "[0, 2, 4, 6, 8]"

We can use different values for start, stop, and step to extract complex sublists, such as the one below:

my_list = [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]

sublist = my_list[1:9:3] # code snippet (4)

print(sublist) # will print "[1, 4, 7]"

All of the above examples will also work with a string in place of a list. Try replacing the value of my_list with “Helloworld” and see what substrings are produced.

When a slice cannot be satisfied, Python will return an empty sequence. For example, we will get an empty list if we try use the slice [2:] on a list with only two elements, as below:

my_list = [0,1]

sublist = my_list[2:]

print(sublist) # will print "[]"

The built-in Python slice function allows us to create slice objects, which we can use in place of slice notation. For example:

my_list = [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]

my_slice = slice(1,5)

sublist = my_list[my_slice] # i.e. my_list[1:5]

print(sublist) # will print "[1, 2, 3, 4]"

In simple cases, this is more cumbersome than just using slice notation directly, but it may be useful if we need to create different slices programmatically.