Hi there!

I hope this wasn't suggested before. I couldn't find any issues related to it.

The `get()` function on the dictionary object is such a convenient way for retrieving items from a dict that might not exists. I always wondered why the list object does not have an equivalent?

I constantly run into something like this:

    myval = mylist[1] if len(mylist) > 1 else None

or worse like this:

    try:
        myval = mylist[1]
    except IndexError:
        myval = None

While I think it would be nice to do it like this:

    myval = mylist.get(1)

Any love for this?

Cheers! :)

It was suggested a year ago. See the topic "get() method for list and tuples" on the Python-ideas mailing list.

https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2017-February/044839.html

Yes, this was discussed and rejected several years ago.

Thank you for the suggestion.

Thanks for the link! Interesting read.

I have to disagree with the statement that this is something that happens very rarely. Just have a look at the mess on stackoverflow alone (these are only the top results I got after a minute of googling):

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5125619/why-doesnt-list-have-safe-get-method-like-dictionary

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2492087/how-to-get-the-nth-element-of-a-python-list-or-a-default-if-not-available

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2574636/getting-a-default-value-on-index-out-of-range-in-python

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12186388/get-value-at-list-array-index-or-none-if-out-of-range-in-python

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17721748/default-value-for-out-of-bounds-list-index