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dealing with data

Deal with complex data

Any program of any worth that you create has to work with data. Sometimes,
the data is simple and straightforward—easy to work with. Other times, the
data you have to work with is complex in its structure and meaning, forcing you
to work hard to make sense of it all, let alone write code to process it.
To tame complexity, you can often arrange your data as a list: there’s the list
of customers, your friend’s list, the shopping list, and your to-do list (to name
a few). Arranging data in lists is so common that Python makes it easy for you
to create and process lists in code.
Let’s look at some complex data before learning how to create and process list
data with Python.

I’ve been making lists of
movie data for years and
A highly would love to be able to
organized process it on my laptop... There sure is
a lot of data
movie buff listed here.

The Holy Grail, 1975, T erry Jones & T erry Gilliam, 91 mins
Graham Chapman

Michael Palin, John Cleese, T erry Gilliam, Eric Idle & T erry Jones The Holy Grail, 1975, T erry Jones & T erry Gilliam, 91 mins
The Life of Brian, 1979, T erry Jones, 94 mins
Graham Chapman

Michael Palin, John Cleese, T erry Gilliam, Eric Idle & T erry Jones Graham Chapman
The Meaning of Life, 1983, T erry Jones, 107 mins
The six Monty Python cast members
The Holy Grail, 1975, T erry Jones & T erry Gilliam, 91 mins
Graham Chapman Michael Palin, John Cleese, T erry Gilliam, Eric Idle & T erry Jones

Michael Palin, John Cleese, T erry Gilliam, Eric Idle & T erry Jones
The Life of Brian, 1979, T erry Jones, 94 mins
Graham Chapman The Life of Brian, 1979, T erry Jones, 94 mins

Michael Palin, John Cleese, T erry Gilliam, Eric Idle & T erry Jones
The Meaning of Life, 1983, T erry Jones, 107 mins
The six Monty Python cast members Graham Chapman
The Holy Grail, 1975, T erry Jones & T erry Gilliam, 91 mins
Graham Chapman
Michael Palin, John Cleese, T erry Gilliam, Eric Idle & T erry Jones
Michael Palin, John Cleese, T erry Gilliam, Eric Idle & T erry Jones
The Life of Brian, 1979, T erry Jones, 94 mins
Graham Chapman

Michael Palin, John Cleese, T erry Gilliam, Eric Idle & T erry Jones The Meaning of Life, 1983, T erry Jones, 107 mins
The Meaning of Life, 1983, T erry Jones, 107 mins
The six Monty Python cast members
The six Monty Python cast members
Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, John Cleese, T erry Gilliam, Eric Idle & T erry Jones
This data is complex, too.
On first glance, this collection of data does indeed look quite complex.
However, the data appears to conform to some sort of structure: there’s a line
for a list of basic movie facts, then another line for the lead actor(s), followed
by a third line listing the movie’s supporting actors.
This looks like a structure you can work with…
6 Chapter 1