How to access the index in a for loop in Python

Find out how to access the index in for loops in Python.

Find out how to access the index in a for loop in Python.

#more

1) Use enumerate()¶

This can be done with the enumerate function:

my_list = ["apple", "banana", "cherry"]
for index, item in enumerate(my_list):
    print(index, item)

0 apple
1 banana
2 cherry

enumerate(iterable, start=0)¶

Iterating with enumerate returns a tuple containing the current index and the current item for each iteration. Notice that if we use a different value for the optional start argument, the iteration over the items still starts at the first item, but the start index starts at the given value:

my_list = ["apple", "banana", "cherry"]
for index, item in enumerate(my_list, start=1):
    print(index, item)

1 apple
2 banana
3 cherry

2) Use range(len(my_list))¶

As an alternative you could also iterate over the indices using range(len(your_list)). This works too, however, the first option using enumerate is much better and considered to be more pythonic.

my_list = ["apple", "banana", "cherry"]
for index in range(len(my_list)):
    print(index, my_list[index])

0 apple
1 banana
2 cherry