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Tuples

Tuples are ordered, immutable collections. They are useful when you want a fixed sequence that should not change (for example, coordinates or records).

# Creation
t = (1, 2, 3)
single = (1,)  # trailing comma for single-element tuple

# Indexing
first = t[0]

# Immutable: methods that would mutate return new values
s = (1, 2) + (3,)

# Useful for unpacking
x, y, z = t

% MATLAB does not have a tuple type; use fixed-size vectors or cell arrays for heterogenous data
t = [1 2 3];  % numeric tuple-like
c = {"a", 1, true};  % heterogeneous cell array

Gotchas

  • Tuples are immutable in Python; attempting to assign to an index raises an error.
  • Use tuples as keys in dictionaries when you need composite keys.
  • In Matlab, cell arrays can hold heterogeneous types similar to tuples but use different indexing ({} vs ()).