What is the analogous of the describe() or info() methods for a List in Python?

Question

Given a list I would like a way to explore its contents.

len() will give me the number of items in the list but how I could go further than that? E.g. get information about the classes of the objects contained in the list and their size?

This is a rather general question. If you feel I should produce some concrete example let me know.

Since there can be arbitrary types in a single list in python, there really is no better way than iterating over it and checking every item — RunOrVeith, Nov 30 '17 at 22:28

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 30 '17 at 23:11

If you want to know the available attributes and methods of a list, you can print the online help:

help(list)

If you want the documentation of a method, you can do, for instance:

help(list.append)

If you want the number of items you can use Len function:

l = [True, None, "Hi", 5, 3.14]
print("Length of the list is {0}".format(len(l)))
# -> Length of the list is 5

If you want the memory size of your list reference, you can try sys.getsizeof function:

import sys

print(sys.getsizeof(l))
# -> 104

For the memory size of the items, just sum the individual sizes:

print(sum(sys.getsizeof(i) for i in l))
# -> 147

To list the type of each item, use the type function:

for item in l:
    print(type(item))

You get:

<class 'bool'>
<class 'NoneType'>
<class 'str'>
<class 'int'>
<class 'float'>

What is the analogous of the describe() or info() methods for a List in Python?

1 Answers1