How to Add a Value to the Front and Return a New List in Python?

In Python, to add a value to the front and return a new list (as opposed to modifying it in-place), you can do the following:

# Python 3+
existing_list = ['bar', 'baz']
new_list = ['foo', *existing_list]

print(new_list) # ['foo', 'bar', 'baz']

In the example above, the value you wish to add to the front goes at the first index in the new list and the existing list is unpacked (using *) right after. This does not mutate/modify the original array, however, it's only available in Python 3+. If you wish to achieve the same in earlier versions of Python, then you can do the following instead:

existing_list = ['bar', 'baz']
new_list = ['foo'] + existing_list

print(new_list) # ['foo', 'bar', 'baz']

Here, the + operator creates a shallow copy of both lists and combines them — where the first list has the value you wish to add to the start and the second list is the existing one.