Python Mastery – From Basics to Brilliance / Data Structures in Python

Example: Shopping Cart System

Let’s create a basic shopping cart using all 4 data structures:

cart = ["milk", "bread"]              # List of items
prices = {"milk": 40, "bread": 30}   # Dictionary of item prices
combo_items = ("milk", "bread")       # Tuple of combo pack
unique_items = set(cart)              # Set to remove duplicates

print("Items in cart:", cart)
total = sum([prices[item] for item in cart])
print("Total Price:", total)
Items in cart: ['milk', 'bread']
Total Price: 70

This uses:

  • List to store cart items.

  • Dict to store price lookups.

  • Tuple for fixed combos.

  • Set to avoid duplicates.