values = ['A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E']
values[0] # returns 'A'
values[2] # returns 'C'
# etc.

You can use _ _getitem__(key) function.

>>> iterable = ('A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E')
>>> key = 4
>>> iterable.__getitem__(key)
'E'

Same as any other language, just pass index number of element that you want to retrieve.

#!/usr/bin/env python
x = [2,3,4,5,6,7]
print(x[5])

When new to python and programming, I struggled with a means to edit a specific record in a list. List comprehensions will EXTRACT a record but it does not return an .index() in my_list. To edit the record in place I needed to know the .index() of the actual record in the list and then substitute values and this, to me, was the real value of the method.

I would create a unique list using enumerate():

>>> unique_ids = [[x[0], x[1][3]] for x in enumerate(my_list)]
>>>

Without getting into details about the structure of my_list, x[0] in the above example was the index() of the record whereas the 2nd element was the unique ID of the record.

for example, suppose the record I wanted to edit had unique ID "24672". It was a simple matter to locate the record in unique_ids

>>> wanted = [x for x in unique_ids if x[1] == "24672"][0]
>>> wanted
(245, "24672")

Thus I knew the index at the moment was 245 so I could edit as follows:

>>> my_list[245][6] = "Nick"
>>>

This would change the first name field in the my_list record with index 245.

>>> my_list[245][8] = "Fraser"
>>>

This would change the last name field in the my_list record with index 245.

I could make as many changes as I wanted and then write the changes to disk once satisfied.

I found this workable.

If anyone knows a faster means, I would love to know it.