How can someone 'copy' a list and change the elements in the 'copied' list and not affect the original one? Thanks in advance🙂

Question

I created a list and copied it. Changing the elements in the second list, affected the original one. 👇👇

Guns = ["SPITTER", "STING"]
Guns2 = Guns

Guns2[0] = "VENOM"

print(Guns)
👉["VENOM", "STING"]

print(Guns2)
👉["VENOM", "STING"]

Answer 1

here is a way to get around it

first = ["apples", "orange"]

second = list(first)

second[0] = "grapes"

print(first)
print(second)

>>>
["apples", "orange"]
["grapes", "orange]

concept behind how guns2 is connected to guns is that when you write the instruction

guns2 = guns

you're stating that guns2 represents guns not the value of guns.
so whenever guns2 or guns change a value
the other variable would change as well.

so changing the instruction into

guns2 = list(guns)

guns2 will then contain the value of guns.

Answer 2

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2612802/how-to-clone-or-copy-a-list

Answer 3

if you like you can also use copy:

import copy

Guns = ["SPITTER", "STING"]
Guns2 = copy.copy(Guns)
Guns2[0] = "VENOM"
print(Guns)
print(Guns2)

# output:
'''
['SPITTER', 'STING']
['VENOM', 'STING']
'''

Answer 4

Thanks a lot🙏🙏