I have a problem concerning duplicate list entries. My data are more complex than the below example, but the idea is the same.
I have a list. Depending on other factors (outside this code), in some cases I need a duplicate of some of the list elements. Having copied them, I then want to give all list elements a unique number. However, I find that the copied elements (the original and the copy) get the same number. How do I solve this problem?
list = [["apple", '', "a"], ["pear", '', "b"]]
list.append(list[0])
counter = 0
for item in list:
counter += 1
item[1] = counter
This yields the list:
[['apple', 3, 'a'], ['pear', 2, 'b'], ['apple', 3, 'a']]
But what I wanted was:
[['apple', 1, 'a'], ['pear', 2, 'b'], ['apple', 3, 'a']]
(I can't just append the counter, because it's a specific column that needs to be filled in)
