Understanding Python Tuples: A Beginner's Guide to Immutable Sequences

A collection of ordered and immutable objects is known as a tuple. Tuples and lists are similar as they both are sequences. Though, tuples and lists are different because we cannot modify tuples, although we can modify lists after creating them, and also because we use parentheses to create tuples while we use square brackets to create lists.

Placing different values separated by commas and enclosed in parentheses forms a tuple. For instance,

Example

tuple_1 = ("Python", "tuples", "immutable", "object")  
tuple_2 = (23, 42, 12, 53, 64)  
tuple_3 = "Python", "Tuples", "Ordered", "Collection"  

We represent an empty tuple by two parentheses enclosing nothing.

Empty_tuple = ()  

We need to add a comma after the element to create a tuple of a single element.

Tuple_1 = (50,)  

Tuple indices begin at 0, and similar to strings, we can slice them, concatenate them, and perform other operations.

Create a Tuple

All the objects (elements) must be enclosed in parenthesis (), each separated by a comma, to form a tuple. Although using parenthesis is not required, it is recommended to do so.

Whatever the number of objects, even of various data types, can be included in a tuple (dictionary, string, float, list, etc.).

Code

# Python program to show how to create a tuple  
  
# Creating an empty tuple  
empty_tuple = ()  
print("Empty tuple: ", empty_tuple)  
  
# Creating tuple having integers  
int_tuple = (4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14)  
print("Tuple with integers: ", int_tuple)  
  
# Creating a tuple having objects of different data types  
mixed_tuple = (4, "Python", 9.3)  
print("Tuple with different data types: ", mixed_tuple)  
  
# Creating a nested tuple  
nested_tuple = ("Python", {4: 5, 6: 2, 8:2}, (5, 3, 5, 6))  
print("A nested tuple: ", nested_tuple)  

Output

 Empty tuple:  ()
Tuple with integers:  (4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14)
Tuple with different data types:  (4, 'Python', 9.3)
A nested tuple:  ('Python', {4: 5, 6: 2, 8: 2}, (5, 3, 5, 6))

Parentheses are not mandated to build tuples. Tuple packing is the term for this.

Example

# Python program to create a tuple without using parentheses  
  
# Creating a tuple  
tuple_ = 4, 5.7, "Tuples", ["Python", "Tuples"]  
  
# displaying the tuple created  
print(tuple_)  
  
# Checking the data type of object tuple_  
print( type(tuple_) )  
  
# trying to modify tuple_  
try:  
    tuple_[1] = 4.2  
except:  
    print( TypeError )  

Output

 (4, 5.7, 'Tuples', ['Python', 'Tuples'])
<class 'tuple'>
<class 'TypeError'>

It can be challenging to build a tuple with just one element.

Placing just the element in parentheses is not sufficient. It will require a comma after the element to be recognized as a tuple.

Example

# Python program to show how to create a tuple having a single element  
  
single_tuple = ("Tuple")  
print( type(single_tuple) )   
  
# Creating a tuple that has only one element  
single_tuple = ("Tuple",)  
print( type(single_tuple) )   
  
# Creating tuple without parentheses  
single_tuple = "Tuple",  
print( type(single_tuple) )  

Output

<class 'str'>
<class 'tuple'>
<class 'tuple'>

Repetition Tuples in Python

Example

# Python program to show repetition in tuples  
    
tuple_ = ('Python',"Tuples")  
print("Original tuple is: ", tuple_)  
  
# Repeting the tuple elements  
tuple_ = tuple_ * 3  
print("New tuple is: ", tuple_)  

Output

Original tuple is:  ('Python', 'Tuples')
New tuple is:  ('Python', 'Tuples', 'Python', 'Tuples', 'Python', 'Tuples')

Tuple Methods

Tuple does not provide methods to add or delete elements, and there are only the following two choices.

Examples of these methods are given below.

Example

# Python program to show how to tuple methods (.index() and .count()) work  
  
# Creating a tuple  
tuple_ = ("Python", "Tuple", "Ordered", "Immutable", "Collection", "Ordered")  
  
# Counting the occurrence of an element of the tuple using the count() method  
print(tuple_.count('Ordered'))  
  
# Getting the index of an element using the index() method  
print(tuple_.index('Ordered')) # This method returns index of the first occurrence of the element  

Output

2
2

Tuple Membership Test

Using the in keyword, we can determine whether an item is present in the given tuple or not.

Example

# Python program to show how to perform membership test for tuples  
  
# Creating a tuple  
tuple_ = ("Python", "Tuple", "Ordered", "Immutable", "Collection", "Ordered")  
  
# In operator  
print('Tuple' in tuple_)  
print('Items' in tuple_)  
  
# Not in operator  
print('Immutable' not in tuple_)  
print('Items' not in tuple_)  

Output

True
False
False
True

Iterating Through a Tuple

We can use a for loop to iterate through each element of a tuple.

Example

# Python program to show how to iterate over tuple elements  
  
# Creating a tuple  
tuple_ = ("Python", "Tuple", "Ordered", "Immutable")  
  
# Iterating over tuple elements using a for loop  
for item in tuple_:  
    print(item)  

Output

Python
Tuple
Ordered
Immutable 

Advantages of Tuple over List

Tuples and lists are employed in similar contexts because of how similar they are. A tuple implementation has several benefits over a list, though. The following are a few of the primary benefits:

1. We generally employ lists for homogeneous data types and tuples for heterogeneous data types.
2. Tuple iteration is quicker than list iteration because tuples are immutable. There is such a modest performance improvement.
3. Tuples with immutable components can function as the key for a Python dictionary object. This feature is not feasible with lists.
4. Collecting data in a tuple will ensure that it stays write-protected if it never changes.

Points to remember for Tuples

1. Tuples are immutable Python sequences, i.e. you cannot change elements of a tuple in place.
2. Tuples' items are indexed.
3. Tuples store a reference at each index.
4. Tuples can be indexed sliced and its individual items can be indexed.
5. len (T) returns count of tuple elements.
6. Tuple manipulation functions are: len(), max(), min(), and tuple().