How to mimic Golang make() function in Python?

I am trying to rewrite go code to python and I don’t understand how the make() function in Golang works.

As an example I have this code which I’m trying to rewrite to Python:

a = make([]string, 1)
b = make([]int, 1)
c = make(map[string]string)

Any help is appreciated.

>Solution :

No need to make anything in Python… or in other words, no need to write a function that mimics make. Unlike Go where you have to be explicit about allocating something, in Python this is implicit as objects are allocated automatically on creation for you.

• a = make([]string, 1): this is a slice of string of size 1 and capacity 1, in Python you can just create an empty list instead: a = [] and then .append() strings into it. Unlike Go for slices or arrays, Python does not require all elements of a list to be of the same type. If you want you could create a = [None] just to be able to index the list right away (in general a = [default_value] * size).
• b = make([]int, 1): same here, just b = [] or b = [0] if you need to index the list right away. Note that Go initializes all elements to 0 for []int.
• c = make(map[string]string): this creates a map with string as keys and values. Closest thing in Python would be a dictionary: c = {}. And again, you are not constrained by types in Python so you can later do c["foo"] = "bar" without a problem.

NOTE THAT Go slices have different semantics than Python slices. Doing a[1:10] in Go creates a slice that is merely a view on the underlying object, while in Python a[1:10] copies all the elements creating a new list.