Converting a list into comma-separated string with "and" before the last item - Python 2.7

Question

I have created this function to parse the list:

listy = ['item1', 'item2','item3','item4','item5', 'item6']


def coma(abc):
    for i in abc[0:-1]:
        print i+',',
    print "and " + abc[-1] + '.'

coma(listy)

#item1, item2, item3, item4, item5, and item6.

Is there a neater way to achieve this? This should be applicable to lists with any length.

Answer 1

When there are 1+ items in the list (if not, just use the first element):

>>> "{} and {}".format(", ".join(listy[:-1]),  listy[-1])
'item1, item2, item3, item4, item5 and item6'

Edit: If you need an Oxford comma (didn't know it even existed!) -- just use: ", and" instead:

>>> "{}, and {}".format(", ".join(listy[:-1]),  listy[-1])
'item1, item2, item3, item4, item5, and item6'

Answer 2

def oxford_comma_join(l):
    if not l:
        return ""
    elif len(l) == 1:
        return l[0]
    else:
        return ', '.join(l[:-1]) + ", and " + l[-1]

print(oxford_comma_join(['item1', 'item2', 'item3', 'item4', 'item5', 'item6']))

Output:

item1, item2, item3, item4, item5, and item6

Also as an aside the Pythonic way to write

for i in abc[0:-1]:

is

for i in abc[:-1]: