Lists and Tuples store one or more objects or values in a specific order. The objects stored in a list or tuple can be of any type including the nothing type defined by the None Keyword.
Lists and Tuples are similar in most context but there are some differences which we are going to find in this article.
Syntax Differences
Syntax of list and tuple is slightly different. Lists are surrounded by square brackets [] and Tuples are surrounded by parenthesis ().
Example 1.1: Creating List vs. Creating Tuple
list_num = [1,2,3,4]
tup_num = (1,2,3,4)
print(list_num)
print(tup_num)
Output:
[1,2,3,4] (1,2,3,4)
Above, we defined a variable called list_num which hold a list of numbers from 1 to 4.The list is surrounded by brackets []. Also, we defined a variable tup_num; which contains a tuple of number from 1 to 4. The tuple is surrounded by parenthesis ().
In python we have type() function which gives the type of object created.
Example 1.2: Find type of data structure using type() function
type(list_num)
type(tup_num)
Output:
list tuple
Mutable List vs Immutable Tuples
List has mutable nature i.e., list can be changed or modified after its creation according to needs whereas tuple has immutable nature i.e., tuple can’t be changed or modified after its creation.
Example 2.1: Modify an item List vs. Tuple
list_num[2] = 5
print(list_num)
tup_num[2] = 5
Output:
[1,2,5,4] Traceback (most recent call last): File "python", line 6, in <module> TypeError: 'tuple' object does not support item assignment
In above code we assigned 5 to list_num at index 2 and we found 5 at index 2 in output. Also, we assigned 5 to tup_num at index 2 and we got type error. We can't modify the tuple due to its immutable nature.
Note: As the tuple is immutable these are fixed in size and list are variable in size.
Available Operations
Lists has more builtin function than that of tuple. We can use dir([object]) inbuilt function to get all the associated functions for list and tuple.
Example 3.1: List Directory
dir(list_num)
Output:
['__add__', '__class__', '__contains__', '__delattr__', '__delitem__', '__dir__', '__doc__', '__eq__', '__format__', '__ge__', '__getattribute__', '__getitem__', '__gt__', '__hash__', '__iadd__', '__imul__', '__init__', '__init_subclass__', '__iter__', '__le__', '__len__', '__lt__', '__mul__', '__ne__', '__new__', '__reduce__', '__reduce_ex__', '__repr__', '__reversed__', '__rmul__', '__setattr__', '__setitem__', '__sizeof__', '__str__', '__subclasshook__', 'append', 'clear', 'copy', 'count', 'extend', 'index', 'insert', 'pop', 'remove', 'reverse', 'sort']
Example 3.2: Tuple Directory
dir(tup_num)
Output:
['__add__', '__class__', '__contains__', '__delattr__', '__dir__', '__doc__', '__eq__', '__format__', '__ge__', '__getattribute__', '__getitem__', '__getnewargs__', '__gt__', '__hash__', '__init__', '__init_subclass__', '__iter__', '__le__', '__len__', '__lt__', '__mul__', '__ne__', '__new__', '__reduce__', '__reduce_ex__', '__repr__', '__rmul__', '__setattr__', '__sizeof__', '__str__', '__subclasshook__', 'count', 'index']
We can clearly see that, there are so many additional functionalities associated with a list over a tuple.We can do insert and pop operation, removing and sorting elements in the list with inbuilt functions which is not available in Tuple.
Size Comparison
Tuples operation has smaller size than that of list, which makes it a bit faster but not that much to mention about until you have a huge number of elements.
Example 5.1: Calculate size of List vs. Tuple
a= (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0)
b= [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0]
print('a=',a.__sizeof__())
print('b=',b.__sizeof__())
Output:
a= 104 b= 120
In above code we have tuple a and list b with same items but the size of tuple is less than the list.
Different Use Cases
At first sight, it might seem that lists can always replace tuples. But tuples are extremely useful data structures
- Using a tuple instead of a list can give the programmer and the interpreter a hint that the data should not be changed.
- Tuples are commonly used as the equivalent of a dictionary without keys to store data. For Example,
[('Swordfish', 'Dominic Sena', 2001), ('Snowden', ' Oliver Stone', 2016), ('Taxi Driver', 'Martin Scorsese', 1976)]Above example contains tuples inside list which has a list of movies.
- Reading data is simpler when tuples are stored inside a list. For example,
[(2,4), (5,7), (3,8), (5,9)]
is easier to read than[[2,4], [5,7], [3,8], [5,9]]
Tuple can also be used as key in dictionary due to their hashable and immutable nature whereas Lists are not used as key in a dictionary because list can’t handle __hash__() and have mutable nature.
key_val= {('alpha','bravo'):123} #Valid
key_val = {['alpha','bravo']:123} #Invalid
Key points to remember:
- The literal syntax of tuples is shown by parentheses
()whereas the literal syntax of lists is shown by square brackets[]. - Lists has variable length, tuple has fixed length.
- List has mutable nature, tuple has immutable nature.
- List has more functionality than the tuple.