How to Make a List Case-insensitive in Python

In Python, a plethora of functionalities exist that can make your programming journey easier. One of these is handling case insensitivity in lists. Sometimes, you may have a list that contains items in different cases – uppercase, lowercase, or both.

If you want to consider ‘Python’ and ‘python’ as the same, you need to make your list case-insensitive. By the end of this tutorial, you will learn how to create a case-insensitive list in Python.

Step 1: Creating a List

Before making any changes, let’s create a list containing a few words of different cases. Here is an example:

Step 2: Using List Comprehension to Convert Input

In Python, we can achieve list case insensitivity using list comprehension and the built-in lower() function. The lower() function can convert a string to lowercase:

This piece of code will convert all the elements in your list to lowercase.

Step 3: Making the List Case-Insensitive

Now, as all the elements in the list are in lowercase, the list becomes case-insensitive. The string ‘Python’ and ‘python’, which were considered different, will now be treated as the same.

Full Code

Output

['python', 'programming', 'language', 'tutorial']

Conclusion

In conclusion, making a list case-insensitive in Python is quite straightforward. By converting all the elements of the list to either lower or upper case using list comprehension and in-built Python functions, you can easily manage and perform operations on the list without worrying about case sensitivity.

This functionality will prove extremely useful when you are dealing with large lists where case inconsistency of elements can lead to unreliable outcomes.