How to obtain the last index of a list?

len(list1)-1 is definitely the way to go, but if you absolutely need a list that has a function that returns the last index, you could create a class that inherits from list.

class MyList(list):
    def last_index(self):
        return len(self)-1


>>> l=MyList([1, 2, 33, 51])
>>> l.last_index()
3