Create A Slice Using A Tuple

Is there any way in python to use a tuple as the indices for a slice? The following is not valid: >>> a = range(20) >>> b = (5, 12) # my slice indices >>&

Solution 1:

You can use Python's *args syntax for this:

>>> a = range(20)
>>> b = (5, 12)
>>> a[slice(*b)]
[5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]

Basically, you're telling Python to unpack the tuple b into individual elements and pass each of those elements to the slice() function as individual arguments.

Solution 2:

How about a[slice(*b)]?

Is that sufficiently pythonic?

Solution 3:

slice takes up to three arguments, but you are only giving it one with a tuple. What you need to do is have python unpack it, like so:

a[slice(*b)]

Solution 4:

Only one tiny character is missing ;)

In [2]: a = range(20)

In [3]: b = (5, 12)

In [4]: a[slice(*b)]
Out[4]: [5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11