Difference between python append() and extend() methods of list

Difference between python append() and extend() methods of list:

append() and extend() are two predefined functions of python list. Both are used to add items to a list. But there is a difference between these two. In this post, we will learn how to use append() and extend() and the differences between them.

append() :

append() method is used to add one item to the end of a list. This method is defined as below:

list.append(e)

It will append the element e to the list list. For example:

given_list = [1,2,3,4]

given_list.append(5)
print(given_list)

given_list.append('apple')
print(given_list)

given_list.append([5,6,7])
print(given_list)

In this example, we are appending items to the list given_list. We have three print statements in this program. It will print the below output:

[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 'apple']
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 'apple', [5, 6, 7]]

The first one adds 5, the second one adds apple and the third one adds [5, 6, 7] to the original list given_list.

extend() :

extend() method is used to add all elements of an iterable to the end of a list. For example :

given_list = [1,2,3,4]

given_list.extend([5,6,7])
print(given_list)

This will print out the below output:

[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

Here, it adds all the elements of the second list to the origin list given_list at the end.

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Difference between python append() and extend() methods of list