Make a function named first_4 that accepts an iterable as an argument and returns the first 4 items in the iterable.

def first_4(iterable):
  first_4[0:4]

Still don't understand this and it's starting to get demoralizing.

When you want to return a value from a function, you use the return keyword.

def first_4(iterable):
  # Refer to the iterable being passed in with the argument
  # name, which in this case happens to be iterable
  return iterable[0:4]

This will exit the function, sending back the result of iterable[0:4].

Note that you don't have to use the name iterable, you can rename it to whatever you want.

The help is greatly appreciated! I'm really bad at reading the question and i'll try and work on this more.

return iterable can be written even shorter by typing return iterable[:4]

An easier way to think about how to get the last four numbers is to think about what negative index you should start from, i.e. how to get the fourth element starting from the end.

As for how to structure the function, we can define two variables local to it:

def first_and_last_4(numbers):
  # left and right are local to the function
  left = numbers[0:4]
  right = # Try your solution for the last 4 elements

  # Adding two lists will create a merged list.
  return left + right

You can do this on one line, but if you were curious about how the lifetime of variables works in a function, when first_and_last_4 is called left and right will be assigned the list slices defined above, and once the function returns they will no longer exist. This will be repeated each time the function is called.

Ok i got it! But you mentioned that I could do this all on one line. I'm curious to how that works because it would seem more efficient than writing all of that out. I really do appreciate you going through this much detail with me it means a lot.

It's no problem, it's what we're here for.

For reducing the code, since left and right were just placeholders for the slices with no further modifications needed, you can just append them right from the results of the slices instead:

return numbers[:4] + numbers[-4:]

Alright thanks! I do have one last question though if you don't mind answering it for me. I have an extra credit thing that I've been working on and the section asks: Change the formatting of the list display. I don't quite understand what the question is asking me to do, if you could give me a brief explanation of what it means so I can try and work it out that'd be great.

Sounds like it just wants you to mess with the options of format to make a nicer display. Here's a list of some examples from the official docs.

This will let you mess with fill, text alignment, etc.

Thanks!