TypeError: can only assign an iterable

Question

https://code.sololearn.com/c01Gmd0PTrEw/?ref=app

I am novice programmer. I decided to experiment with the code and stumbled upon this error. Nothing is clear on the Internet, something about RHS. Please tell me in more details what it is.

Answer 1

garfy ,

the solution is rather simple. we can use:
...
letters[:3]= [5] # uses an iterable to replacd index 0 upto and including index 2

the output will be:
[5, 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g']

> instead of using [5], we can also use a variable like *num*, that contains a number like 5:
letters[:3] = [num]

> the slice assignment with an iterable can be also done also like:
letters[:3]= 5, # by using this notation (note the *comma* after the 5), a tuple with the element of 5 is created and assigned to the list

Answer 2

thank you so much!

Answer 3

You need to assign some iterables like list, tuple in RHS since you are using slicing. Iterables means any object (note: list is object. for more information you can google Object oriented programming) that can be iterate over.
Iterate mean executing block of code again and again

you can do something like

letters[:3] = [1,2,3]

or you can use tuple,dictionary or any iterables insted of list

Answer 4

letters = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g']
# you first created a list here

letters[:3]= 5 # Error
# this letters[:3] is selecting the first 3 elements of the list and the next part, = 5 is trying to replace the 3 elements of the list with 5
# but here 5 is an integer and letter[:3] is a list with 3 items, you can't replace a list with an integer
#use letter[:3] = [5] to avoid error, as both are lists now

print(letters)

By the way, letter[:3] and letter[3] are never same.