How to increment in Python?

How to increment in Python?
To increment in Python, use the + operator or the increment operator +=. Using the += operator can be considered the more pythonic way and is more concise than using the + operator because the variable is not repeated.

Python doesn't have an ++ operator like other programming languages.
For example in PHP, the ++ operator can be used as shown below.





Increment using + operator
To increment a value use the + operator as shown below.


# increment using + operator
x = 1

# increment by 1
x = x + 1

# increment by 2
x = x + 2

# print value
print(x)


First, the variable x is defined to value 1.
Then the variable x is increment by 1.
Then the variable x is increment by 2.
Finally, the variable is printed.

4

Increment using += operator
To increment a value use the += operator as shown below.


# increment using += operator
x = 1

# increment by 1
x += 1

# increment by 2
x += 2
 
# print value
print(x)


First, the variable x is defined to value 1.
Then the variable x is incremented by 1.
Then the variable x is incremented by 2.
Finally, the variable is printed.

4

increment in loops
To increment in Python, use loops as shown below.


# increment using while loop
myList = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
counter = 0
while counter < len(myList):
   myList[counter] += 1
   counter += 1

print(myList)


In this example, all elements of the list are increment by one. Also the counter is increment by 1, until it exceeds the length of the list and the loop ends.

[2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

The same can be done, using a for loop instead of a while loop.


# increment using for loop
myList = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
counter = 0
for counter in range(0, len(myList), 1):
   myList[counter] += 1

print(myList)


All elements of the list are incremented by one until the loop ends.

[2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

increment characters
To increment characters, which means to choose the next character in the list of ascii characters, can be done as shown below.


# increment characters

# find integer representation of character
character = ord('a')

# increase integer representation by one
character += 1

# convert integer representation into the actual character again
character = chr(character)

# print character
print(character)


First, the character is converted into the integer representation of the character.
Then the integer representation is incremented by 1.
Then the integer representation is converted back into an actual character.
Finally, the character is printed.

The next character after a is b.

b

Is there a ++ operator in Python?
It is not possible to increment numbers in Python with the ++ operator like in other programming languages for example Java or PHP. 
In case the ++ operator is used in Python a SyntaxError exception is raised.

SyntaxError: invalid syntax