Check if list is empty without using the `not` command

Question

How can I find out if a list is empty without using the not command?

Here is what I tried:

if list3[0] == []:  

    print "No matches found"  

else:  

    print list3

I am very much a beginner, so excuse me if I do dumb mistakes.

Answer 1

In order of preference:

# Good

if not list3:

# Okay

if len(list3) == 0:

# Ugly

if list3 == []:

# Silly

try:

    next(iter(list3))

    # list has elements

except StopIteration:

    # list is empty

If you have both an if and an else you might also re-order the cases:

if list3:

    # list has elements

else:

    # list is empty