How to create a list of tuples

Question

I cannot believe that this doesn't work. I guess I am missing something fundamental. I am trying to make a list of tuples:

newtags = []
print newtags
newtags = newtags.append(('{','JJ'))
print newtags

output is:

[]
None

I should be getting a list of tuples instead.

Answer 1

.append() doesn't return anything. Your code will work fine if you remove the preceding newtags =:

newtags = []
print newtags
newtags.append(('{','JJ'))
print new tags

Which now runs as:

[]
[('{', 'JJ')]

---

Here's another example:

>>> arr = []
>>> print arr.append(9)
None
>>> arr
[9]
>>> arr = arr.append(8)
>>> arr
>>> print arr
None
>>> 

Answer 2

The method append() modifies the list in-line. So, it doesn't return anything (i.e. returns None):

newtags = []
newtags.append(('{','JJ'))