Getting a default value on index out of range in Python [duplicate]

Answer 1

I’m all for asking permission (i.e. I don’t like the try…except method). However, the code gets a lot cleaner when it’s encapsulated in a method:

def get_at(array, index, default):
    if index < 0: index += len(array)
    if index < 0: raise IndexError('list index out of range')
    return array[index] if index < len(a) else default

b = get_at(a, 4, 'sss')