Is there a Python idiom for the last n elements of a sequence?

Question

e.g., for a sequence of unknown length, what is the most "Pythonic" way of getting the last n elements?

Obviously I could calculate the starting and ending indices. Is there anything slicker?

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 21 '13 at 20:50

6

Yes, by using negative indices:

last_five = somesequence[-5:]

Negative indices in a slice are relative to the sequence length.

answered Mar 21 '13 at 20:50

Martijn Pieters

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 21 '13 at 20:51

1

Use negative indexing.

seq[-1] is the last element of a sequence. seq[-3:] gives you the last three.

answered Mar 21 '13 at 20:51

Daniel Roseman

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 21 '13 at 20:51

1

Try:

sequence[-n:]

(text to make Stack Overflow happy)

answered Mar 21 '13 at 20:51

Nicholas Riley

3 Answers3