On Fri, 28 Sep 2018 19:00:29 +0100, Chris Green wrote: > I have a list created by:- > > fld = shlex.split(ln) > > It may contain 3, 4 or 5 entries according to data read into ln. What's > the neatest way of setting the fourth and fifth entries to an empty > string if they don't (yet) exist? Using 'if len(fld) < 4:' feels clumsy > somehow.
how about simply adding 2 or more null entries to the list then slicing? string = "a b c" a=string.split() (a+['',''])[0:5] -- QOTD: If you're looking for trouble, I can offer you a wide selection. -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list