What are “named tuples” in Python?

Question

My main question is what is named tuple, and how we can use it in our program? And also one more thing, why should I use named tuples rather than normal tuples?

Answer 1

Please be informed that the named tuples are fundamentally easy-to-create, lightweight object types. Named tuple objects can be referenced using object-like variable dereferencing or the standard tuple syntax. They are immutable objects.

This leads to code like the following:

pt1 = (1.0, 5.0)

pt2 = (2.5, 1.5)

from math import sqrt

line_length = sqrt((pt1[0]-pt2[0])**2 + (pt1[1]-pt2[1])**2)

Using a named tuple it becomes more readable:

from collections import namedtuple

Point = namedtuple('Point', 'x y')

pt1 = Point(1.0, 5.0)

pt2 = Point(2.5, 1.5)

from math import sqrt

line_length = sqrt((pt1.x-pt2.x)**2 + (pt1.y-pt2.y)**2)

But, named tuples are still backwards compatible with normal tuples, so the following will still execute:

Point = namedtuple('Point', 'x y')

pt1 = Point(1.0, 5.0)

pt2 = Point(2.5, 1.5)

from math import sqrt

# use index referencing

line_length = sqrt((pt1[0]-pt2[0])**2 + (pt1[1]-pt2[1])**2)

 # use tuple unpacking

x1, y1 = pt1

If you want to know more about tuples then do refer to the python course that will help you out in a better way.