It's pretty simple really:
a[start:stop] # items start through stop-1
a[start:] # items start through the rest of the array
a[:stop] # items from the beginning through stop-1
a[:] # a copy of the whole array
There is also the step
value, which can be used with any of the above:
a[start:stop:step] # start through not past stop, by step
The key point to remember is that the :stop
value represents the first value that is not in the selected slice. So, the difference between stop
and start
is the number of elements selected (if step
is 1, the default).
The other feature is that start
or stop
may be a negative number, which means it counts from the end of the array instead of the beginning. So:
a[-1] # last item in the array
a[-2:] # last two items in the array
a[:-2] # everything except the last two items
Similarly, step
may be a negative number:
a[::-1] # all items in the array, reversed
a[1::-1] # the first two items, reversed
a[:-3:-1] # the last two items, reversed
a[-3::-1] # everything except the last two items, reversed
Python is kind to the programmer if there are fewer items than you ask for. For example, if you ask for a[:-2]
and a
only contains one element, you get an empty list instead of an error. Sometimes you would prefer the error, so you have to be aware that this may happen.
Relation to slice()
object
The slicing operator []
is actually being used in the above code with a slice()
object using the :
notation (which is only valid within []
), i.e.:
a[start:stop:step]
is equivalent to:
a[slice(start, stop, step)]
Slice objects also behave slightly differently depending on the number of arguments, similarly to range()
, i.e. both slice(stop)
and slice(start, stop[, step])
are supported.
To skip specifying a given argument, one might use None
, so that e.g. a[start:]
is equivalent to a[slice(start, None)]
or a[::-1]
is equivalent to a[slice(None, None, -1)]
.
While the :
-based notation is very helpful for simple slicing, the explicit use of slice()
objects simplifies the programmatic generation of slicing.
Best Answer
There isn't a more concise way, what you did is the "right" way; because slices are always one-dimensional but may be composed to construct higher-dimensional objects. See this question for more details: Go: How is two dimensional array's memory representation.
One thing you can simplify on it is to use the
for range
construct:Also note that if you initialize your slice with a composite literal, you get this for "free", for example:
Yes, this has its limits as seemingly you have to enumerate all the elements; but there are some tricks, namely you don't have to enumerate all values, only the ones that are not the zero values of the element type of the slice. For more details about this, see Keyed items in golang array initialization.
For example if you want a slice where the first 10 elements are zeros, and then follows
1
and2
, it can be created like this:Also note that if you'd use arrays instead of slices, it can be created very easily:
Output is:
In case of arrays you don't have to iterate over the "outer" array and initialize "inner" arrays, as arrays are not descriptors but values. See blog post Arrays, slices (and strings): The mechanics of 'append' for more details.
Try the examples on the Go Playground.