How to get the nth element of a python list or a default if not available

try:
   a = b[n]
except IndexError:
   a = default

Edit: I removed the check for TypeError - probably better to let the caller handle this.

l[index] if index < len(l) else default

To support negative indices we can use:

l[index] if -len(l) <= index < len(l) else default

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