How to Print specific items in a List in Python

# Table of Contents

1. Print specific items in a List in Python
2. Print multiple specific list items
3. Printing a slice in the middle of the list
4. Printing the items that meet a given condition
5. Printing specific items in a list of lists

# Print specific items in a List in Python

Use list slicing to print specific items in a list, e.g. print(my_list[1:3]).

The print() function will print the slice of the list starting at the specified index and going up to, but not including the stop index.

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my_list = ['bobby', 'hadz', '.', 'com']

# ✅ Print the first item in a list
first = my_list[0]
print(first)  # 👉️ 'bobby'

# ✅ Print the last item in a list
last = my_list[-1]
print(last)  # 👉️ 'com'

# ✅ Print slice containing multiple list items
result = my_list[1:3]
print(result)  # 👉️ ['hadz', '.']

If you need to print a single list item, access the list at the specific index.

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my_list = ['bobby', 'hadz', '.', 'com']

first = my_list[0]
print(first)  # 👉️ 'bobby'

last = my_list[-1]
print(last)  # 👉️ 'com'

You can use the list.index() method if you need to get the index of a list item.

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my_list = ['bobby', 'hadz', '.', 'com']

variable = 'bobby'
index = my_list.index(variable)
print(index) # 👉️ 0

print(my_list[index]) # 👉️ 'bobby'

Python indexes are zero-based, so the first item in a list has an index of 0, and the last item has an index of -1 or len(my_list) - 1.

# Print multiple specific list items

Use list slicing if you need to print multiple items in the list.

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my_list = ['bobby', 'hadz', '.', 'com']

# ✅ print the first 2 items in a list
print(my_list[:2]) # 👉️ ['bobby', 'hadz']

# ✅ print the last 2 items in a list
print(my_list[-2:]) # 👉️ ['.', 'com']

# ✅ print slice containing multiple list items
result = my_list[1:3]
print(result)  # 👉️ ['hadz', '.']

The syntax for list slicing is a_list[start:stop:step].

If the start index is omitted, it is considered to be 0, if the stop index is omitted, the slice goes to the end of the list.

The slice my_list[:2] starts at index 0 and goes up to, but not including index 2.

The slice my_list[-2:] returns the last 2 elements from the list as negative indices are used to count backward.

# Printing a slice in the middle of the list

If you need to get a slice somewhere in the middle of the list, specify the start and stop indexes.

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my_list = ['bobby', 'hadz', '.', 'com']

start_index = my_list.index('bobby')
stop_index = my_list.index('.')

# 👇️ ['bobby', 'hadz']
print(my_list[start_index:stop_index])

The list.index() method returns the index of the first item whose value is equal to the provided argument.

Note that the stop index is exclusive (up to, but not including).

# Printing the items that meet a given condition

Use a for loop if you need to print the items in a list that meet a condition.

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my_list = ['bobby', 'hadz', '.', 'com']

for item in my_list:
    if 'had' in item:
        print(item)  # 👉️ 'hadz'

On each iteration, we check if the string had is contained in the list item and print the matching items.

# Printing specific items in a list of lists

You can use the same approach to print specific items in a list of lists.

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list_of_lists = [['bobby', 'hadz'], ['.', 'com']]

print(list_of_lists[0][0])  # 👉️ 'bobby'
print(list_of_lists[0][1])  # 👉️ 'hadz'

The first set of square brackets is used to select a sublist in the list.

The second set is used to select a specific item in the sublist.

For example, the slice list_of_lists[0][0] returns the first element of the first sublist.

The slice list_of_lists[0][1] returns the second element of the first sublist.

I've also written an article on how to print a list in columns.

# Additional Resources

You can learn more about the related topics by checking out the following tutorials:

• How to Print a Zipped list in Python
• Print a List without the Commas and Brackets in Python