initiliase list with empty elements python

Question

I am trying to initiliase a list with the first 5 elements empty and then append to the list thereafter. The purpose is that when i write this list to a csv file, the output will be as such: ,,,,,,a,b,c here is my code:

l = list()
l[:5]=""
l.append('a')

When i print out this list, it contains only the element 'a'. How can I initiliase the list such the first 5 elements are empty and when I print it out it will show something like [, , , , , 'a']

thanks

Answer 1

For immutable types like string you can do -

lst = [""] * 5

Though doing this for mutable elements (like lists or so) can cause issues as all the five elements would be pointing to the same object , so mutating one of them would cause changes reflected in the other elements (as they are the same object) .