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Python Introducing Lists Using Lists Continental

Thierry van Wessel
Thierry van Wessel
2,141 Points

I just have no idea how to select an list item on condition that it starts with the letter A.

I have a list of 7 continents and should only print out the continents that start with letter A.

continents.py
continents = [
    'Asia',
    'South America',
    'North America',
    'Africa',
    'Europe',
    'Antarctica',
    'Australia',
]
# Your code here

for continent in continents:
    print("* " + continent.index)

1 Answer

boi
boi
14,242 Points

I want you to figure this out by yourself so DON'T look at the direct solution below BEFORE reading the indirect solution.

INDIRECT SOLUTION: suppose you have a list of words, and in those list of words I want you to give me words that start with an alphabet "A", so your solution would be something like;

For each word in this list of words, if the alphabet "A" is the first letter in this word, I want that word

DIRECT SOLUTION:

for word in words:
    if "A" == word[0]:
        print(word)

The actual solution to the challenge:

since the instructor wants you to make use of indexing, let's solve using indexing

for continent in continents:

    if "A" == continent[0]:   # Made use of indexing here uisng the "if" condition

        print("* " + continent)

That's it

I wasn't the original person asking this question, but I was also stumped. I just wanted to let you know that you helped me to understand! I was missing the double "==". I only had "=".

boi
boi
14,242 Points

Glad it helped you Elisha.