As you already know using Python input() function, we can accept a string, integer and character input from a user. Now, let see how to accept the list as an input in Python.
- Article is part of a Python Basics.
- Solve our Python Basic Exercise for Beginners and
Solve our Python Quiz For Beginners to practice Python essential skills.
This Article mainly focuses on solving the following questions:
- How to input a list in python
- Get a list of numbers as input from the user
- How to create a list from user input
- input array in python
- Python input list of strings
Note: This article is applicable for both Python 2 and 3.
Get a list of numbers as input from the user
Python Program to get a list of numbers as input from a user and calculate the sum of it
input_string = input("Enter a list element separated by space ")
list = input_string.split()
print("Calculating sum of element of input list")
sum = 0
for num in list:
sum += int (num)
print("Sum = ",sum)Output: Execute Online
Enter a list element separated by space 2 4 6 8 Calculating sum of element of input list Sum = 20
Let’s Understand above program.
- As you know Python input() function always convert user input to string. We accepted list element from a user in the format of a string separated by space.
- Note you can also accept list element input separated by comma or another separator you need to pass the separator as argument in split() function.
- We are using
input_string.split()to split a string by spaces and added those elements to list. - We iterated a list using for Loop and converted each element to an integer and calculated sum.
What about getting a list of string as an input?
Python input list of strings
We can also accept a list of string input from user same as we did for a list of integers. Let’s see the demo.
Python Program to get a list of string as input from a user. In this demo, we are accepting all family member names from a user.
input_string = input("Enter family members separated by comma ")
family_list = input_string.split(",")
print("Printing all family member names")
for name in family_list:
print(name)Output: Execute Online
Enter family members separated by comma Jhon, Kelly, Scott, Jessa Printing all family member names Jhon Kelly Scott Jessa
Let’s Understand above program.
- we accepted the input list element from a user in the format of a string separated by a comma.
- Using
input_string.split(",")we split a string by a comma and created a list of string - We iterated a list using for loop and printed all f.amily member names from a list of string
Next Steps
To practice what you learned in this article, I have created a Python Basic Quiz and Exercise.
- Solve our Python essential exercise for beginners to have a better understanding of Python basic concepts.
- Solve our Basic Python Quiz for beginners to test your fundamental Python skills.
Let me know your comments and feedback in the section below.
References:
Vishal,
In example “Python input list of strings”, you separated the elements by comma while some elements were left with blank space in front, how could I accomplish the same separation without leaving with this blank space in front?
I try input_string.split(“, “) but doesn’t work for input example: “Max,well,sampaio”
Hi Maxwell use strip() method while printing a string
For example:
print(name.strip())Give input as “Max, well, sampaio” i.e., insert spaces after each comma
Hi Vishal,
your exercises are very helpful.
I got motivate to learn python from you only..
Please let me how can i attend your session or exercises and videos..
Please share me your availability on my personal mail id..
Hey Shiva, Thank you for your appreciation.
Very helpful, the explanation is crisp and good.
I am glad you liked it
Hi the ouput is getting correctly printed in the console but the same is not getting properly printed when i am writing it in a text file. For example in console all the family member names :Jhon
Kelly
Scott
Jessa
are getting printed but when i write it into a file , i see only jessa is printed.
Could you help me on this ?
Hey Anirban, Can you please show me your code
Hi, i am using the list function to sort an input list , but when a two digit number is inputted, it will think 9 is bigger
For example:
when this list is entered: 1 2 9 66 3 2 55 2 3 66
it is sorted as: [‘1’, ‘2’, ‘2’, ‘2’, ‘3’, ‘3’, ‘5’, ’55’, ’66’, ’66’, ‘9’]
Is there something im doingg wrong?
My code is:
numbers = input(“Enter a list of no.s: “)
list = numbers.split( )
list.sort()
print(list)
Hey Anish It is treating the number as String. Pass list.sort(key=int) to specify the data type to sort the input list in Python
For example:
numbers = input("Enter a list of no.s: ")
list = numbers.split( )
list.sort(key=int)
print(list)
Thank you so much!
Hey Vishal,
First of all, your website is really helpfull! But I still have a similar problem left similar to Anish’s. I tried to do as you told, but I can’t figure it out for my case. My max should be 16 not 9. What am I’m doing wrong?
My program:
from utils import find_max
input_numbers = input(” “)
numbers = input_numbers.split(” “)
numbers.sort(key=int)
print(find_max(numbers))
What I get on the terminal:
1 2 3 4 16 9
9
What I imported (I know there is a shortcut for this but I just try to exercise):
def find_max(numbers):
largest = numbers[0]
for number in numbers:
if largest < number:
largest = number
return largest
Whatever you enter as input, input function convert it into a string. If you enter an integer value still input() function convert it into a string. You need to do the explicit conversion into an integer in your code.
try this
def find_max(numbers): largest = int (numbers[0]) for number in numbers: num = int (number) if largest < num: largest = num return largest input_numbers = input("Enter numbers") numbers = input_numbers.split(" ") print(numbers) numbers.sort(key=int) print(find_max(numbers))Thank you very much!!
Hi This is Mahesh beginner in python,
Can you Please Suggest some Important Python books and books like how you explain in your website.
If possible give some good explain python videos.
Thanking you