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Python Python Collections (2016, retired 2019) Slices Slice Functions

Jesse Ferguson
Jesse Ferguson
1,419 Points
Posted by Jesse Ferguson
Jesse Ferguson
1,419 Points

slices

need help... what am I doing wrong here

slices.py 
my_list = ['hey', 'I', 'am', 18, 'and' 12, 1, 2, 3, 4]
def first_4(my_list):
    my_list[:3]
    return my_list
def first_and_last_4(my_list):
    my_list[:3]
    my_list[6:10]
    return my_list

2 Answers

Thomas Fildes
Thomas Fildes
22,687 Points
Thomas Fildes
Thomas Fildes
22,687 Points

Hi Jesse,

Please see the below code I used to pass this part of the challenge:

def first_and_last_4(iterable):
    return iterable[:4] + iterable[-4:]

The above code returns the first 4 and last 4 items as instructed.

The tricky part is understanding the [-4:] bit of code. Basically this code will start at -1 (last item in list) and count backwards up to the fourth last item in the list.

Hope this helps! Happy Coding!!!