Python: incorporating index from for loop as part of a list name

Question

How does one generate a set of lists that incorporate the index from a for loop in the list name:

for j in range(10):
   li"j" = []

How can the index 'j' be part of the name, so the lists are li0, li1, li2, ...

Thanks!

Answer 1

You can make li a dictionary:

li = {}
for j in range(10):
    li[j] = []

Answer 2

You can actually do this with exec, like so:

exec ("li%s = []" % 4)

But don't do this. You almost certainly do not want dynamically named variables. Greg Hewgill's approach will probably solve your problem.

Answer 3

If you do this simply to initialize lists to use them later, you should instead use one multi-dimensional list or even better tuple to do this:

li = tuple( [] for i in range( 10 ) )
li[0].append( 'foo' )
li[5].append( 'bar' )