© Irv Kalb 2018
Irv KalbLearn to Program with Python 3https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-3879-0_11

11. Data Structures

Irv Kalb1 
(1)
Mountain View, California, USA
 

Let’s start this chapter with a definition.

Definition

A data structure is a collection of multiple pieces of data, arranged in a way that the data can be accessed efficiently.

The only data structure we have discussed so far is a list. A list allows us to refer to any one of multiple pieces of data using an index. Python has a few more built-in data structures.

This chapter covers the following topics:
  • Tuples

  • Lists of lists

  • Representing a grid or a spreadsheet

  • Representing the world of an adventure game

  • Reading a comma-separated value (.csv) file

  • Dictionary

  • Using the in operator on a dictionary ...

Get Learn to Program with Python 3: A Step-by-Step Guide to Programming now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.