Tuples¶

A tuple is an ordered, immutable sequence of items. Tuples are written with parentheses (...) with comma-separated elements.

Once created, items in a tuple cannot be added, removed, or modified.

Creating Tuples¶

# A tuple of integers
coordinates = (10, 20, 30)

# Parentheses are optional for tuple packing
point = 4, 5

# Empty tuple
empty = ()

The Single-Element Tuple Rule¶

To define a tuple containing only one element, you must include a trailing comma:

Example: Single Element Tuple

# Without comma: evaluated as integer inside parentheses
not_a_tuple = (50)
print(type(not_a_tuple))  # <class 'int'>

# With comma: recognized as a tuple
is_a_tuple = (50,)
print(type(is_a_tuple))   # <class 'tuple'>

Differences Between Lists and Tuples¶

Feature	List (`list`)	Tuple (`tuple`)
Syntax	Square brackets `[1, 2, 3]`	Parentheses `(1, 2, 3)`
Mutability	Mutable (can modify elements)	Immutable (cannot modify elements)
Performance	Larger memory footprint	Faster allocation and smaller memory size
Dictionary Keys	Cannot be used as dictionary keys	Can be used as keys (if items are hashable)

Tuple Packing and Unpacking¶

Tuple unpacking allows you to assign elements of a tuple directly to multiple variables:

Example: Tuple Unpacking and Swapping

# Unpacking
person = ("Alice", 25, "Software Engineer")
name, age, profession = person

print("Name:", name)
print("Age:", age)
print("Profession:", profession)

# Variable swapping in Python
x = 10
y = 20
x, y = y, x
print("x:", x, "y:", y)

Output

Name: Alice Age: 25 Profession: Software Engineer x: 20 y: 10

Extended Unpacking with Asterisk (`*`)¶

Use the * prefix to catch remaining values into a list:

first, *middle, last = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
print("First: ", first)   # 1
print("Middle:", middle)  # [2, 3, 4]
print("Last:  ", last)    # 5

Named Tuples (`collections.namedtuple`)¶

The collections.namedtuple factory function assigns names to each position in a tuple, allowing attribute-style access:

Example: Using namedtuple

from collections import namedtuple

Point = namedtuple("Point", ["x", "y"])
p = Point(11, 22)

print("x coordinate:", p.x)
print("y coordinate:", p.y)
print("By index:    ", p[0])