#In my list I have items stored in the format [ID, TITLE, NAME, DATE] and each column is separated using a ','. I use:
    for item in my_list:
        each_item_in_book = item.split(",")
        item_id = each_item_in_book[0]
        item_title = each_item_in_book[1]
        item_name = each_item_in_book[2]
        item_date = each_item_in_book[3]

#Sometimes my item will only have [ID, TITLE, NAME] (excludes date) and sometimes [ID, TITLE] (excludes name and date). When it's #like this, the code:
    item_name = each_item_in_book[2]
    item_date = each_item_in_book[3]
#those two items wont be valid as they don't exist in the list. Is there a way to detect if those are empty?