Check whether a list is empty or not in different ways.

There are multiple ways to check whether a list is empty or not in Python. Let’s see them one by one.

Length

We can check whether a list is empty or not using the length of the list. It’s a straightforward solution and most people get it as a first approach. Let’s see the steps to check the list emptiness.

  • Write a function called is_list_empty that takes a list as an argument.
  • Check the length of the list.
    • If the length is 0, then return True else return False.

That’s it. We are done with the steps involved in the program.

Let’s code.

# function to check whether the list is empty or not
def is_list_empty(list):
    # checking the length
    if len(list) == 0:
        # returning true as length is 0
        return True
    # returning false as length is greater than 0
    return False

Let’s check our function with the following code.

list_one = [1, 2, 3]
list_two = []
print(is_list_empty(list_one))
print(is_list_empty(list_two))

You will get the following result if you execute the above code.

False
True

Bool

The boolean value of an empty list is always False. Here, we will take the advantage of the bool method. We are going to use the bool conversion method to check whether the list is empty or not. Let’s see the steps involved in it.

  • Write a function called is_list_empty that takes a list as an argument.
  • Convert the list to boolean using bool method.
  • Inver the result and return it.

Yeah! that’s it. We are done with the steps. Let’s see the code.

# function to check whether the list is empty or not
def is_list_empty(list):
    # returning boolean value of current list
    # empty list bool value is False
    # non-empty list boolea value is True
    return not bool(list)

Let’s test our function with the following code.

list_one = [1, 2, 3]
list_two = []
print(is_list_empty(list_one))
print(is_list_empty(list_two))

You will get the same output as we have seen in the previous example. Execute and test it.

Equality Operator

There is another simple way to check the list is empty or not. We can directly compare the list with empty list ([]). Python returns True if the given list matches with the empty list.

Let’s see the steps to check whether the list is empty or not with the equality operator.

  • Write a function called is_list_empty that takes a list as an argument.
  • Compare the given list with [] and return the list.

One simple step gives you a lot in Python. Let’s see the code.

# function to check whether the list is empty or not
def is_list_empty(list):
    # comparing the list with []
    # and returning the result
    return list == []

Now, you can check the function with code snipped that we have used in this tutorial. You will get the same output as before.

Conclusion

That’s more than enough for the developers to check the emptiness of a list.

There might be other ways to check whether the list is empty or not. We have seen some of them. Choose the method that best suits you.

Interested in mastering Python? Check out this course.

Happy Coding 🙂

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