How to unpack Python list or tuple the better way?

# Introduction

In this blog, we will discuss how to use unpacking to assign multiple items from a list/tuple instead of manually accessing and setting the values.

What we generally do

Generally, whenever we encounter a list or tuple in Python and we need to unpack it, we do it this way:

post_data = [1, 'Getting started with Rich', 'Ashutosh Krishna']

post_id = post_data[0]
post_title = post_data[1]
post_author = post_data[2]

print(post_id, post_title, post_author)

Yep, we're able to access the list elements correctly. It's not wrong at all. But there's a better way to do the same.

The Better Way

The same task can be performed in a better way. Instead of manually accessing and setting the values, we can assign multiple items from a list/tuple this way:

post_data = [1, 'Getting started with Rich', 'Ashutosh Krishna']

post_id, post_title, post_author = post_data

print(post_id, post_title, post_author)

Did you see that we got the same output but with lesser code? It's more concise and less error-prone.

If you know JavaScript, you might have found it similar to destructuring there.

const postData = [1, "Getting Started With Rich", "Ashutosh Krishna"];
const [postId, postTitle, postAuthor] = postData;
console.log(postId, postTitle, postAuthor);

// With Objects
const anotherPostData = {
  anotherPostId: 1,
  anotherPostTitle: "Getting Started With Rich",
  anotherPostAuthor: "Ashutosh Krishna",
};
const { anotherPostId, anotherPostTitle, anotherPostAuthor } = anotherPostData;
console.log(anotherPostId, anotherPostTitle, anotherPostAuthor);

Let's see another example where we have a tuple within the list.

post_data = [1, 'Getting started with Rich', ('Ashutosh Krishna', 22, 'India')]

## General Way, Don't Do ❌

post_id = post_data[0]
post_title = post_data[1]
author_data = post_data[2]
author_name = author_data[0]
author_age = author_data[1]
author_country = author_data[2]

print(post_id, post_title)
print(author_name, author_age, author_country)


## Better Way ✅

## Unpack the list first
post_id, post_title, author_data = post_data

## Unpack the tuple
author_name, author_age, author_country = author_data

print(post_id, post_title)
print(author_name, author_age, author_country)

In the above example, we have a list called post_data. Inside the list, we have a tuple containing author data.

We have the general way first. Then we have our better way where first of all, we unpacked the list to get the post_id, post_title, and author_data (which is a tuple). Then we unpacked the tuple to get the author_name, author_age, and author_country.