namedtuple.md

Named Tuples

The namedtuple type is a shortcut for structuring data. A namedtuple has fixed fields. If you are thinking about creating a class only for organizing attributes, the namedtuple is much shorter.

You define a namedtuple by listing its attributes:

:::python
from collections import namedtuple

Animal = namedtuple('Animal', ('name', 'legs', 'eggs'))

species = [
    Animal('chicken', 2, True),
    Animal('dolphin', 0, False),
    Animal('elephant', 4, False),
]

The attributes are available afterwards by their name. This is much easier than indexing by numbers like in a normal tuple:

:::python
for animal in species:
    print(f"The {animal.name} has {animal.legs} legs.")
    if animal.eggs:
      print("It is laying eggs.")