Understanding Python's range() Function: Syntax, Parameters, and Examples

Python's range() function returns an iterable object in Python 3 (not a list), while in Python 2 it returns a list directly; converting the Python‑3 iterable to a list can be done with list(range(...)) .

Supported syntaxes are range(stop) and range(start, stop[, step]) .

Parameters:

start : the starting value (default 0).

stop : the end value (exclusive).

step : the increment (default 1).

Basic usage example:

>> range(5)
range(0, 5)

Iterating over the range:

for i in range(5):
print(i)

Output:

0
1
2
3
4

Converting to a list or tuple:

list(range(5))  # [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
tuple(range(5)) # (0, 1, 2, 3, 4)

Examples with start, stop, and step:

list(range(0, 30, 5))  # [0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25]
list(range(0, 10, 2))  # [0, 2, 4, 6, 8]
list(range(0, -10, -1)) # [0, -1, -2, -3, -4, -5, -6, -7, -8, -9]

Extended note: In Python 3, range() replaces Python 2's xrange() . Generating a list or tuple from a range works the same way in both versions, but Python 2 creates the full list immediately, whereas Python 3 creates elements lazily during iteration.