Reverse a list without using built-in functions
<p>I'm using Python 3.5. </p>

<p>As part of a problem, I'm trying to design a function that takes a list as input and reverts it. So if <code>x = [a, b, c]</code> the function would make <code>x = [c, b, a]</code>.</p>

<p>The problem is, I'm not allowed to use any built-in functions, and it has got me stuck. My initial thought was the following loop inside a function:</p>

<pre><code>for revert in range(1, len(x) + 1):
    y.append(x[-revert])
</code></pre>

<p>And it works. But the problem is I'm using <code>len(x)</code>, which I believe is a built-in function, correct? </p>

<p>So I searched around and have made the following very simple code:</p>

<pre><code>y = x[::-1]
</code></pre>

<p>Which does exactly what I wanted, but it just seems almost too simple/easy and I'm not sure whether <code>"::"</code> counts as a function. </p>

<p>So I was wondering if anyone had any hints/ideas how to manually design said function? It just seems really hard when you can't use any built-in functions and it has me stuck for quite some time now.</p>

<p>The most pythonic and efficient way to achieve this is by list slicing. And, since you mentioned you do not need any inbuilt function, it completely suffice your requirement. For example:</p>

<pre><code>&gt;&gt;&gt; def reverse_list(list_obj):
...     return list_obj[::-1]
...
&gt;&gt;&gt; reverse_list([1, 3, 5 , 3, 7])
[7, 3, 5, 3, 1]
</code></pre>

python list python-3.x