A tuple is an ordered, immutable collection of items. Unlike lists, tuples cannot be modified after creation, making them useful for storing read-only data.
1. Creating Tuples
Tuples are defined using parentheses () and can store different data types.
Example:
fruits = ("apple", "banana", "cherry")
numbers = (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
mixed = ("Python", 3.14, True)
print(fruits, numbers, mixed)
Output:
('apple', 'banana', 'cherry') (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) ('Python', 3.14, True)
2. Accessing Tuple Elements
Tuples use zero-based indexing to access elements.
Example:
tuple1 = ("apple", "banana", "cherry")
print(tuple1[0]) # First item
print(tuple1[-1]) # Last item
Output:
apple
cherry
3. Slicing Tuples
You can extract portions of a tuple using slicing.
Example:
tuple2 = (10, 20, 30, 40, 50)
print(tuple2[1:4]) # Elements from index 1 to 3
print(tuple2[:3]) # First three elements
print(tuple2[::-1]) # Reverse tuple
4. Tuple Immutability
Tuples cannot be modified after creation.
Example:
tuple3 = ("apple", "banana", "cherry")
tuple3[1] = "orange" # ❌ This will raise an error
To modify a tuple, convert it to a list and back to a tuple:
tuple4 = ("apple", "banana", "cherry")
temp_list = list(tuple4)
temp_list[1] = "orange"
tuple4 = tuple(temp_list)
print(tuple4)
5. Tuple Packing & Unpacking
Tuples allow packing multiple values into one variable and unpacking them into separate variables.
Example:
person = ("Alice", 25, "Engineer") # Packing
ame, age, profession = person # Unpacking
print(name, age, profession)
Output:
Alice 25 Engineer
6. Looping Through a Tuple
Example:
fruits = ("apple", "banana", "cherry")
for fruit in fruits:
print(fruit)
7. Tuple Methods
Tuples have a few built-in methods:
Example:
numbers = (1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5)
print(numbers.count(3)) # Count occurrences of 3
print(numbers.index(4)) # Find index of 4
8. Nested Tuples
Tuples can contain other tuples.
Example:
nested_tuple = ((1, 2, 3), ("a", "b", "c"))
print(nested_tuple[0]) # Output: (1, 2, 3)
print(nested_tuple[1][1]) # Output: 'b'
9. Converting Between Lists and Tuples
Convert lists to tuples and vice versa:
Example:
list1 = [1, 2, 3]
tuple1 = tuple(list1)
print(tuple1)
tuple2 = ("a", "b", "c")
list2 = list(tuple2)
print(list2)
10. Summary
✅ Tuples are immutable ordered collections of elements.
✅ Access tuple elements using indexing and slicing.
✅ Packing & unpacking tuples is a useful feature.
✅ Looping & built-in methods allow easy tuple manipulation.
✅ Tuples are faster than lists and useful for read-only data.