🔒 Python len function confusion

[noble osprey]

can someone explain to me the necessity for -1 in the len function?

[onyx moon]

@noble osprey

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[trail folio]

the -1 isnt in the len function but rather the randint

[noble osprey]

sry i mean randint

the book says something about how python thinks index starts at 0

but I don't understand how the -1 still

[trail folio]

!e

import random

help(random.randint)

[onyx moon]

:white_check_mark: Your 3.13 eval job has completed with return code 0.

001 | Help on method randint in module random:
002 | 
003 | randint(a, b) method of random.Random instance
004 |     Return random integer in range [a, b], including both end points.

[trail folio]

if u look at the help for it, u will see how it includes both end points

unlike the builtin range

[noble osprey]

oh right but i need it to return only one valu

e

is that it?

[trail folio]

and because of this, if it rolled len(wordList) it would error

[noble osprey]

but wouldnt that only be an issue if you had 2 items in your list

[trail folio]

if u had 2 items then len will return 2

since it has 2 items then the possible indexes are 0 (the first item) and 1 (the 2nd item)

there is no index 2

[iron flicker]

we've made a bot function for that-

!docs random.randint

[onyx moon]

random.randint

random.randint(a, b)```
Return a random integer *N* such that `a <= N <= b`. Alias for `randrange(a, b+1)`.

[noble osprey]

ohhhhhh

[trail folio]

the bot isnt avaible in ur local repl

[noble osprey]

I see what you mean now

thanks

[trail folio]

cant u just do !d

[iron flicker]

index starts from 0; for example there could be an element at the 0th position and the 1st position.

whereas the len() function (for length) counts the amount of element/s present.

which means that for the previous example, it'd return 2 - since there are 2 elements.

[iron flicker]

yes. yes you can. iirc even !documentation work as well .

[trail folio]

also might be just me but the help() one for this sounds more friendly to beginners

[noble osprey]

.close

woops

sry didnt mean

to tag for that

[trail folio]

its with a !

[noble osprey]

ohhh right

[trail folio]

also discord native close works too

or u can wait 1h of inactivity

[noble osprey]

!close

[onyx moon]

Python help channel closed with !close

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