In this Python tutorial, I will explain how to append multiple items to list Python using many different methods in Python with illustrative examples.
Lists are one of Python’s built-in data structures, and they are invaluable when dealing with sequences of items. At times, we might want to add multiple items to a list in one go.
Before diving into the Python methods, it’s essential to understand what a list is. In Python, a list is an ordered collection of mutable items, meaning you can modify them after their creation. A list can have elements of multiple data types.
Example: Consider a family in New York planning to visit several landmarks. Let’s store the landmarks in a List in Python:
landmarks_to_visit = ["Statue of Liberty", "Central Park", "Empire State Building"]
print(landmarks_to_visit)
print('The landmarks are stored in:', type(landmarks_to_visit))Here, we are printing the created Python list and checking its type.
Output:
['Statue of Liberty', 'Central Park', 'Empire State Building']
The landmarks are stored in: <class 'list'>
This shows that a Python list has been created with three strings. But what if we want to add more items to list Python at a time? So, we have to learn how to append multiple items to list Python
Methods to append multiple items to list Python
There are eight different methods in Python to append multiple items to a list.
- The append method
- append() in a For Loop
- the extend() Method
- the insert() Method
- Using + Operator
- the += Operator
- the * Operator
- Using List Slicing
Let’s see them one by one using illustrative examples:
Method-1: Python append multiple items to list using the append() method
Python provides a built-in method append() to add a single item at the end of the list. We can use multiple append(item) to add multiple items to the Python list.
For example, We have a Python list of favorite American fast-food chains and we suddenly recall the delicious burgers from “Five Guys“, “KFC“, and “subways” that we wish to add to our list.
fast_food_chains = ["McDonald's", "Burger King", "Taco Bell"]
fast_food_chains.append("Five Guys")
fast_food_chains.append("KFC")
fast_food_chains.append("Subways")
print(fast_food_chains)
The output is:
["McDonald's", 'Burger King', 'Taco Bell', 'Five Guys', 'KFC', 'Subways']
This way we can add multiple elements to a list in Python using multiple times append() methods.
Method-2: Python append list to many items using append() method in a for loop
This might not be the most efficient method to append multiple elements to a Python list, but it’s still used in many scenarios.
For instance, Imagine a family is on a road trip and stops in various cities. For each city, they add it to their visited Python list.
Here, we have two different Python lists, and we have to append all the elements from one list to another list.
visited_cities = ["New York", "Los Angeles"]
cities_to_visit = ["Chicago", "Miami", "Dallas"]
for city in cities_to_visit:
visited_cities.append(city)
print(visited_cities)The output is: our visited_cities Python list will look like this:
['New York', 'Los Angeles', 'Chicago', 'Miami', 'Dallas']
This way we can append a list to another list with multiple items in Python using append() in a for loop.
Method-3: The extend() method to extend multiple items in a list Python.
While append() is great for individual items, the extend() method in Python is designed to incorporate multiple items from another Python list or iterable.
Scenario: We are listing out popular American car brands and want to add “Tesla“, “Chevrolet“, and “Cadillac” to our existing Python list.
car_brands = ["Ford", "Dodge", "Jeep"]
car_brands.extend(["Tesla", "Chevrolet", "Cadillac"])
print(car_brands)The output is:
['Ford', 'Dodge', 'Jeep', 'Tesla', 'Chevrolet', 'Cadillac']
This way we use the extend() method to append multiple elements in list Python.
Method-4: Python append multiple items to List Python using the insert() method
While the insert() Python method typically adds a single item to a specified position, we can use a for loop to append multiple items to list Python.
Scenario: An American football coach has a Python list of main players who were pre-decided and wants to add some substitutes as main Players after some decisions at some specific positions in the main_players Python list.
main_players = ["John", "Mike", "Lucas"]
substitutes = ["Ethan", "Tyler"]
position_to_insert = 1
for player in substitutes:
main_players.insert(position_to_insert, player)
position_to_insert += 1
print(main_players)The output is:
['John', 'Ethan', 'Tyler', 'Mike', 'Lucas']
This way we can use the insert() method with for loop to add multiple elements in List Python.
Method-5: Append list to multiple items Python using + operator
Python supports list concatenation using the + operator. We can use the + operator to add multiple elements to a Python list.
For example, We’re documenting famous American landmarks. We initially listed it in Python and then decided to add “Mount Rushmore” and “Statue of Liberty” to it afterward.
landmarks = ["Grand Canyon", "Golden Gate Bridge"]
landmarks = landmarks + ["Mount Rushmore", "Statue of Liberty"]
print(landmarks)
The output is:
['Grand Canyon', 'Golden Gate Bridge', 'Mount Rushmore', 'Statue of Liberty']
This way we can append multiple items to list Python using the + operator.
Method-6: Using the += operator to append multiple items to list Python
Being Python programmers we should avoid code repeatability. In the above method example, we repeated landmarks two times in the same line, which is not a good way to write a program in Python. So, to avoid this we can use the += operator.
The += operator is a shorthand for extending a Python list by appending multiple items.
Let’s take a scenario: A student in Chicago has a Python list of books he’s read this year and receives more book recommendations from a friend.
books_read = ["To Kill a Mockingbird", "The Great Gatsby"]
recommended_books = ["On the Road", "Catcher in the Rye"]
books_read += recommended_books
print(books_read)The output is:
['To Kill a Mockingbird', 'The Great Gatsby', 'On the Road', 'Catcher in the Rye']
This way we can use the += operator to append Python list to multiple elements.
Method-7: Append multi items to list Python using the * operator
Python 3.5 introduced the concept of unpacking using the * operator, which can be handy for appending multiple items to a list in Python.
Here, we will how to add a list to another list in Python and can create a new list.
For instance, Say we have a Python list of famous US lakes and another list of famous rivers. We want to combine these into a list of famous water bodies
us_lakes = ["Lake Superior", "Lake Michigan", "Lake Tahoe"]
us_rivers = ["Mississippi River", "Missouri River"]
water_bodies = [*us_lakes, *us_rivers]
print(water_bodies)The output is:
['Lake Superior', 'Lake Michigan', 'Lake Tahoe', 'Mississippi River', 'Missouri River']
This way we can use the * operator to unpack a list of items and append to a list in Python.
Method-8: Using List slicing to Append list with multiple items in Python
Slicing can be an unconventional but effective way to insert multiple items into a list Python.
Scenario: A Texan farmer lists down his cattle count and wants to insert counts from another ranch in between in Python.
cattle_count = [50, 60, 40]
new_counts = [55, 45]
cattle_count[1:1] = new_counts
print(cattle_count)The output is:
[50, 55, 45, 60, 40]
This way we can use list slicing to Python append multiple elements to list.
Conclusion
This tutorial explains how to append multiple items to list Python using eight different methods like append(), append() within for loop, insert(), extend(), the + operator, += operator, * operator, or list slicing in Python with illustrative examples.
Appending multiple items to a list in Python can be achieved in various ways, depending on the specific requirements of our task.
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I am Bijay Kumar, a Microsoft MVP in SharePoint. Apart from SharePoint, I started working on Python, Machine learning, and artificial intelligence for the last 5 years. During this time I got expertise in various Python libraries also like Tkinter, Pandas, NumPy, Turtle, Django, Matplotlib, Tensorflow, Scipy, Scikit-Learn, etc… for various clients in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, etc. Check out my profile.