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Assignment from Lists

Python provides many ways to use lists to assign values to variables. For instance, you can assign an entire list to a variable:

patientinfo = ['JohnDoe', 42446, 'Admitted', 1000]
print patientinfo     # this displays ['JohnDoe', 42446, 'Admitted', 1000], including the brackets

You can access an individual element of a list by specifying its index:

patientinfo = ['JohnDoe', 42446, 'Admitted', 1000]
patientid = patientinfo[1]

Like lists, indexes are enclosed in brackets ([]). In this example, the element of PatientInfo at index 1 is referenced.

	It is important to note that indexing starts at 0, not 1. To reference the first element of the list stored in variable patientinfo, you must use patientinfo[0], not patientinfo[1]. In the example above, patientinfo[1] refers to the second element of the list. This means that patientid is assigned 42446, not JohnDoe.

You can also assign to multiple variables at once from a single list:

(patientname, patientid, patientstatus) = ['JohnDoe', 42446, 'Admitted']

This assigns JohnDoe to patientname, 42446 to patientid, and Admitted to patientstatus.