This is an intentional way, last element is exclusive.
Why is it so?
Firstly, my understanding it is because test[0:len(test)]
should print all the list and then test[0:len(test)-1]
excludes one element. This is prettier and more readable than if the last element would be included.
Secondly, it is because if you have test[:-1]
it will return all the elements, but the last, which is very intuitive. If it would include the second index, to cut the last element you'd have to do test[:-2]
which is ugly and makes it harder to read...
Also, length of your resulting list is end - start
, which is yet another convenient feature about it.