The built-in Python enumerate function is a better way to access the for loop index.

How to access for loop index in Python:

The builtin enumerate function available in both Python 2,3 versions, so that the legacy python users can also use this function.

if __name__ == '__main__':
    languages = ['python', 'perl', 'groovy', 'java', 'curl', 'javascript']
    for num, name in enumerate(languages):
        print( num, name)

Output:

0 python
1 perl
2 groovy
3 java
4 curl
5 javascript

If you would like to start from the index from 1, simply add the start parameter to enumerate function like below.

if __name__ == '__main__':
    languages = ['python', 'perl', 'groovy', 'java', 'curl', 'javascript']
    for num, name in enumerate(languages, start=1):
        print( num, name)

Output:

1 python
2 perl
3 groovy
4 java
5 curl
6 javascript

Getting the count of Loop:

Even if we want to count the iterations of the loop, the python enumerate function is the better option for this.

if __name__ == '__main__':
    languages = ['python', 'perl', 'groovy', 'java', 'curl', 'javascript']
    for count, name in enumerate(languages, start=1):
        print(name)
    print(f'There were {count} items in the list')

Output:

python
perl
groovy
java
curl
javascript
There were 6 items in the list

References:

• Python enumerate
• Python for iterable

Happy Learning 🙂