Python is a language that has a variety of projects to try to learn. When you are learning and trying to execute commands, you may encounter some errors, and IndexError: tuple index out of range is one of these.

The IndexError occurs when you call an index value that is out of range. So, for any error that starts with IndexError, you need to know it’s about the index value.

Let’s checkout how to fix IndexError: tuple index out of range

How to fix IndexError: tuple index out of range?

This IndexError occurs when you are trying to access an item that doesn’t exist in a tuple. Let’s take a look at the methods and examples to solve IndexError: tuple index out of range

Use Indexing Method

For indexing, the basic concept is that each value in the tuple is linked with the index position to access the value. Index position is from 0 to n-1, where N is the total number of tuple’s values.

Example

Having index numbers:

To obtain the value of ‘Mercedes’ from the tuple, write

print(cars[1])

Use Length Method

The Len() is used to obtain the length of a tuple. Take a look at the example

# Declare tuple
cars= ('Bentley', 'Mercedes', 'Audi', 'BMW', 'Lexus')
print('Print length of Tuple: ',len(cars))
i=0

# While loop less than and equal to tuple "cars" length.
while i <= len(cars):
    print(cars[i])
    i += 1

Error message

File "pyprogram.py", line 8
        print(cars[i])
SyntaxError: invalid character in identifier

The function counts the tuple length as ‘5’, whereas the loop runs 6 times from value i=0 to i=5, which is why we get out of range.

Solutions

# Declare tuple
cars= ('Bentley', 'Mercedes', 'Audi', 'BMW', 'Lexus')
i=0
print('Print length of Tuple: ',len(cars))

# While loop less than tuple "cars" length.
while i < len(cars):
    print(cars[i])
    i += 1

Output

Print length of Tuple:  5

Bentley

Mercedes

Audi

BMW

Lexus

Use range() Method

In the range() method, we provide a specific range of values in the tuple. Its function is to create a list of numbers between the provided range to iterate the items present in our list, which has index numbers in that range.

Example

countries = ('Portugal', 'Hungary', 'Canada', 'Jamaica', 'Brazil', 'Israel')

for i in range(3, 7):
          print(countries[i])

Error message

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "main.py", line 4, in <module>
          print(countries[i])
IndexError: tuple index out of range

 It can’t print the value because out of the range.

Solution

We need to revise the range(). It should be from 2 to 6

for i in range(2, 6):
          print(countries[i])

Output

Canada
Jamaica
Brazil
Israel

Use the try/except method

In this method two possibilities are provided to the program; try or except/catch. Let’s look at the example

cities = ('Venice', 'Frankfurt', 'London')
index_to_check = 3
try:
     thing = cities[index_to_check]
except IndexError:
     thing = "empty"

print(f"The value of thing is '{thing}'")

Output

The value of thing is 'empty'

Use enumerate() method

To iterate over a tuple, the best solution is to use enumerate() function. It is known to return enumerate object with a tuple by taking an iterable. Let’s check the example

cities = ('Venice', 'Frankfurt', 'London')

for index, item in enumerate(cities):
    print(index, item) 

Output

0 Venice

1 Frankfurt

2 London

Conclusion

With this, I wish you happy coding without IndexError: tuple index out of range!