Python/sage: can lists start at index 1?

Question

I\'ve downloaded from a supposedly serious source a sage script. It doesn\'t work on my computer, and a quick debugging showed that a problem came from the fact that at some

Answer 1

Python (and therefore sage) lists are always numbered from 0, and there isn't a way to change that.

Looking at CPython's source, in http://hg.python.org/cpython/file/70274d53c1dd/Objects/listobject.c on line 449:

static PyObject *
list_item(PyListObject *a, Py_ssize_t i)
{
    if (i < 0 || i >= Py_SIZE(a)) {
        if (indexerr == NULL) {
            indexerr = PyString_FromString(
                "list index out of range");
            if (indexerr == NULL)
                return NULL;
        }
        PyErr_SetObject(PyExc_IndexError, indexerr);
        return NULL;
    }
    Py_INCREF(a->ob_item[i]);
    return a->ob_item[i];
}

The item lookup delegates straight to the underlying C array, and C arrays are always zero-based. So Python lists are always zero-based as well.