Python's list type has an index() method that takes one parameter and returns the index of the first item in the list matching the parameter. For instance:
>>> some_list = ["apple", "pear", "banana", "grape"]
>>> some_list.index("pear")
1
>>> some_list.index("grape")
3
Is there a graceful (idiomatic) way to extend this to lists of complex objects, like tuples? Ideally, I'd like to be able to do something like this:
>>> tuple_list = [("pineapple", 5), ("cherry", 7), ("kumquat", 3), ("plum", 11)]
>>> some_list.getIndexOfTuple(1, 7)
1
>>> some_list.getIndexOfTuple(0, "kumquat")
2
getIndexOfTuple() is just a hypothetical method that accepts a sub-index and a value, and then returns the index of the list item with the given value at that sub-index. I hope
Is there some way to achieve that general result, using list comprehensions or lambas or something "in-line" like that? I think I could write my own class and method, but I don't want to reinvent the wheel if Python already has a way to do it.
How about this?
>>> tuple_list = [("pineapple", 5), ("cherry", 7), ("kumquat", 3), ("plum", 11)]
>>> [x for x, y in enumerate(tuple_list) if y[1] == 7]
[1]
>>> [x for x, y in enumerate(tuple_list) if y[0] == 'kumquat']
[2]
As pointed out in the comments, this would get all matches. To just get the first one, you can do:
>>> [y[0] for y in tuple_list].index('kumquat')
2
There is a good discussion in the comments as to the speed difference between all the solutions posted. I may be a little biased but I would personally stick to a one-liner as the speed we're talking about is pretty insignificant versus creating functions and importing modules for this problem, but if you are planning on doing this to a very large amount of elements you might want to look at the other answers provided, as they are faster than what I provided.