Python Function to Set All Items in a List

in

Maybe you have a massive list of numbers that needs to be initialized with some value and you don’t want to spend hours typing them out one by one. Or maybe you accidentally deleted an entire section of your code and now all the items in your list are gone, but you remember what they were! Whatever the reason may be, this function is here to save the day.

Introducing: `set_all_items` a Python function that allows you to set every single item in a list at once with just one line of code.

Here’s how it works:

# Define the function `set_all_items` with two parameters: `lst` and `value`
def set_all_items(lst, value):
    # Use the `range` function to create a sequence of numbers from 0 to the length of the list
    for i in range(len(lst)):
        # Use the index `i` to access each item in the list and set it to the `value` provided
        lst[i] = value
    
    # Return `None` to indicate that the function has completed its task
    return None

Let me break that down for you. First we define a function called `set_all_items`. This function takes two arguments: the list to be modified (let’s call it `lst`) and the new value to set all items to (let’s call it `value`).

Next, we use a `for` loop with the range() function to iterate through every index in our list. For each index, we assign the current item at that index to be equal to the `value`. This effectively sets every single item in the list to the same value!

Finally, since this is a void function (meaning it doesn’t return anything), we simply return None.

So let’s say you have a massive list of numbers that needs to be initialized with some value:

# Initialize a list with 100000 zeros
numbers = [0] * 100000

# Function to set all items in a list to a given value
def set_all_items(lst, value):
    # Loop through the list and set each item to the given value
    for i in range(len(lst)):
        lst[i] = value

# Call the function to set all items in the list to 5
set_all_items(numbers, 5)

# Print the value at index 234 to verify that all items were set to 5
print(numbers[234]) # Output: 5

Or maybe you accidentally deleted an entire section of your code and now all the items in your list are gone, but you remember what they were! No problem. Just use our trusty `set_all_items` function to restore them:

# Initialize the list with some values
my_list = [1, 2]

# Delete items at indexes 1 and 2 (inclusive)
del my_list[1:3]

# Output: [1]
print(my_list)

# Function to set all items in a list to a given value
def set_all_items(lst, value):
    for i in range(len(lst)):
        lst[i] = value

# Set all items in the list to 'hello'
set_all_items(my_list, 'hello')

# Output: ['hello', 'hello']
print(my_list)

A Python function that allows you to set every single item in a list at once.

SICORPS