How to declare and add items to an array in Python?

{} represents an empty dictionary, not an array/list. For lists or arrays, you need [].

To initialize an empty list do this:

my_list = []

or

my_list = list()

To add elements to the list, use append

my_list.append(12)

To extend the list to include the elements from another list use extend

my_list.extend([1,2,3,4])
my_list
--> [12,1,2,3,4]

To remove an element from a list use remove

my_list.remove(2)

Dictionaries represent a collection of key/value pairs also known as an associative array or a map.

To initialize an empty dictionary use {} or dict()

Dictionaries have keys and values

my_dict = {'key':'value', 'another_key' : 0}

To extend a dictionary with the contents of another dictionary you may use the update method

my_dict.update({'third_key' : 1})

To remove a value from a dictionary

del my_dict['key']

If you do it this way:

array = {}

you are making a dictionary, not an array.

If you need an array (which is called a list in python ) you declare it like this:

array = []

Then you can add items like this:

array.append('a')

Arrays (called list in python) use the [] notation. {} is for dict (also called hash tables, associated arrays, etc in other languages) so you won't have 'append' for a dict.

If you actually want an array (list), use:

array = []
array.append(valueToBeInserted)

In some languages like JAVA you define an array using curly braces as following but in python it has a different meaning:

Java:

int[] myIntArray = {1,2,3};
String[] myStringArray = {"a","b","c"};

However, in Python, curly braces are used to define dictionaries, which needs a key:value assignment as {'a':1, 'b':2}

To actually define an array (which is actually called list in python) you can do:

Python:

mylist = [1,2,3]

or other examples like:

mylist = list()
mylist.append(1)
mylist.append(2)
mylist.append(3)
print(mylist)
>>> [1,2,3]