If we want to select the first 3 elements of a list, we could use the following code:

>>> fruits = ['apple', 'banana', 'cherry', 'date']
>>> print(fruits[0:3])
['apple', 'banana', 'cherry']

When starting at the beginning of the list, it is also valid to omit the 0:

>>> print(fruits[:3])
['apple', 'banana', 'cherry']

We can do something similar when selecting the last few items of a list:

>>> print(fruits[2:])
['cherry' , 'date']

We can omit the final index when selecting the final elements from a list.

If we want to select the last 3 elements of fruits, we can also use this syntax:

>>> print(fruits[-3:])
['banana', 'cherry', 'date']

We can use negative indexes to count backward from the last element.