There is: negative indices:
lst[-2]
TutorialsPoint
tutorialspoint.com › article › how-to-get-the-second-to-last-element-of-a-list-in-python
How to get the second-to-last element of a list in Python?
March 15, 2026 - Python lists support negative indexing, where -1 refers to the last element and -2 refers to the second-to-last element. This makes accessing elements from the end of a list straightforward.
Looping until the second to last element in a list, what's best practice?
for item in the_list[:-1] More on reddit.com
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January 11, 2024python - How do I get the last element of a list? - Stack Overflow
How do I get the last element of a list in Python? I tried: ... Save this answer. ... Show activity on this post. ... In fact, you can do much more with this syntax. The some_list[-n] syntax gets the nth-to-last element. So some_list[-1] gets the last element, some_list[-2] gets the second to last, ... More on stackoverflow.com
python accessing the second to the last element in a list - Stack Overflow
I have created a dictionary which I have assigned the first element of a list as a key. I would like to append the rest of the elements as values to the dictionary: file_a contains tab delimited ... More on stackoverflow.com
Finding last index of some value in a list in Python
v[-1] is the last element of a list or tuple. v[-2] is the second last. The syntax where you're doing v[a:b:c], is known as slice notation. a is the start position, b is the end position, and c is the increment. a and b default to the start and end. c defaults to 1, so... v[::] refers to all elements from start to end. Useful for copying whole content somewhere, as distinct from assigning the list to a new variable. v[::2] refers to every second element v[::-1] is all the element in reverse. v[::-2] is every second element in reverse. v[5:] is all elements from 5 to the end. v[:5] is all elements from the start to < 5, so v[:5] and v[5:] do not overlap. More on reddit.com
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August 5, 2024ItSolutionstuff
itsolutionstuff.com › post › python-get-second-last-element-of-list-exampleexample.html
Python Get Second Last Element of List Example - ItSolutionstuff.com
October 30, 2023 - you will do the following things for python array get second last element. In this example, I will create a simple list with the day with the name. Then I will get second last element with name using -2 key of array.
Reddit
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r/learnpython on Reddit: Looping until the second to last element in a list, what's best practice?
January 11, 2024 -
edit: forgot to mention I want the indeces not just the items
the methods I can think of are:
for i in range(len(arr) - 1)
for i, e in enumerate(arr[:len(arr) - 1])
I know range(len(arr)) is frowned upon, but I don't see how it's worse than enumerate in this case. In fact using enumerate on a shortened list and calling len to find the second to last element of that list seems extremely clunky and far less readable.
What's the best practice for doing this?
Stack Abuse
stackabuse.com › python-get-last-element-in-list
Python: Get Last Element in List
March 2, 2023 - lastElement = exampleList[-1] print("Last element: ", lastElement) print("exampleList: ", exampleList) secondToLast = exampleList[-2] print("Second to last element: ", secondToLast) ... Negative indexing does not change the original list. It is only a way of accessing elements without any changes ...
CodeChef
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Accessing the Second-Last Element in Python for project building
Given the following list of colors defined in Python, colors = ["red", "orange", "yellow", "green", "blue", "indigo", "violet"] Which line of code will correctly print the second-last color in the list? Option 1 · print("Second-last color:", colors[-2]) Option 2 ·
Top answer 1 of 16
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some_list[-1] is the shortest and most Pythonic.
In fact, you can do much more with this syntax. The some_list[-n] syntax gets the nth-to-last element. So some_list[-1] gets the last element, some_list[-2] gets the second to last, etc, all the way down to some_list[-len(some_list)], which gives you the first element.
You can also set list elements in this way. For instance:
>>> some_list = [1, 2, 3]
>>> some_list[-1] = 5 # Set the last element
>>> some_list[-2] = 3 # Set the second to last element
>>> some_list
[1, 3, 5]
Note that getting a list item by index will raise an IndexError if the expected item doesn't exist. This means that some_list[-1] will raise an exception if some_list is empty, because an empty list can't have a last element.
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If your str() or list() objects might end up being empty as so: astr = '' or alist = [], then you might want to use alist[-1:] instead of alist[-1] for object "sameness".
The significance of this is:
alist = []
alist[-1] # will generate an IndexError exception whereas
alist[-1:] # will return an empty list
astr = ''
astr[-1] # will generate an IndexError exception whereas
astr[-1:] # will return an empty str
Where the distinction being made is that returning an empty list object or empty str object is more "last element"-like then an exception object.
thisPointer
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6 ways to get the last element of a list in Python - thisPointer
April 29, 2023 - So, if we have a list of size “S”, ... index -1, # Get last element by accessing element at index -1 last_elem = sample_list[-1] print('Last Element: ', last_elem) ......
Finxter
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How to Get the Last Element of a Python List? - Be on the Right Side of Change
September 27, 2020 - To access the last element of a Python list, use the indexing notation list[-1] with negative index -1 which points to the last list element. To access the second-, third-, and fourth-last elements, use the indices -2, -3, and -4.
How to Use Linux
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3 Ways to Get Last Element of a List In Python - howtouselinux
October 9, 2025 - The best way to get the last element of a list in Python is using the list[-1]. Python allows you to use negative indices, which count from the end of the list instead of the beginning. So list[-1] gets the last element, list[-2] gets the second to last. The list[-1] is the most preferable, ...
YouTube
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Find 2nd last or nth last element of a list - YouTube
Find 2nd last or nth last element of a listGIT Link :https://github.com/Amritesh-kumar/Python-Basic/blob/main/Find 2nd last or nth last element%2
Published: October 13, 2023
Views: 247
Spark By {Examples}
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Python Get the Last Element of a List - Spark By {Examples}
May 31, 2024 - Have you ever needed to get the last element of a list in Python, but weren't sure of the best way to do it? There are several different methods you can
GeeksforGeeks
geeksforgeeks.org › python › python-how-to-get-the-last-element-of-list
Get the Last Element of List in Python - GeeksforGeeks
July 11, 2025 - The simplest and most efficient method uses negative indexing with a[-1]. In Python, we can use -1 as an index to access the last element directly. ... We can also find the last element by using len() function.
SheCodes
shecodes.io › athena › 40619-how-to-get-the-last-two-indices-in-a-python-list
[Python] - How to get the last two indices in a Python list | SheCodes
Learn how to use negative indexing and slicing to get the last two indices in a Python list
Delft Stack
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How to Get Last Element of List in Python | Delft Stack
February 15, 2024 - If we do not want to remove the last element from the list, we have to use -1 as the list index. In Python, the -1 index means the last index. Similarly, the -2 index indicates the second last index and so on.
Stack Abuse
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Python: Accessing the Last Element of a List
August 24, 2023 - In the above example, my_list[-2:] gets the last two elements of the list. You can replace 2 with any number to get that many elements from the end of the list. The itertools module in Python comes with a function called islice() that can be used to get the last n elements of a list.
Top answer 1 of 2
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The Python slice syntax is alist[start:end:step]. So, with your slice ::-1, you are just reversing the list.
If you want the second element to the last, the correct slice would be
alist[1:]
a = {}
for line in file_a.readlines():
split_line = line.strip().split('\t')
a[split_line[0]] = split_line[1:]
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a = {}
for line in file_a:
split_line = line.strip().split('\t')
a[split_line[0]] = split_line[1:]
You slicing expression split_line[::-1] evaluates to split_line reversed, because the third parameter is the step (-1 in this case). You want to start at element 1 and go all the way to the end, with the default step of 1. Check this answer for more on slice notation.
GeeksforGeeks
geeksforgeeks.org › python › python-get-first-and-last-elements-of-a-list
Get first and last elements of a list in Python - GeeksforGeeks
List comprehension can be used to pick specific positions from a list. You can get the first and last elements using [a[i] for i in (0, -1)]. This method works well but is less readable compared to indexing.
Published: July 11, 2025
TutorialsPoint
tutorialspoint.com › How-to-get-the-last-element-of-a-list-in-Python
How to get the last element of a list in Python?
August 23, 2023 - Use list[-1] for getting the last element as it's the most pythonic and efficient approach.
Quora
quora.com › How-do-I-find-the-last-element-of-a-list-in-Python
How to find the last element of a list in Python - Quora
Answer (1 of 3): > lets say we have a list of words [code]words = [‘One’, ‘Hello’, ‘Welcome’] [/code] * One Way to do this, is by counting the negative way. [code]print(words[-1]) # will print 'Welcome' (the answer you want) print(words[-2]) # will print 'Hello' print(words[-3]) ...