Question: I have a dataframe with several columns, and I want to append to an empty list the values of one column, so that the desired output would be the following:

```
empty_list = [value_1,value_2,value_3...]

```

I have tried the following:

```
df = pd.DataFrame({'country':['a','b','c','d'],
      'gdp':[1,2,3,4],
      'iso':['x','y','z','w']})
a_list = []

a_list.append(df['iso'])
a_list.append(df['iso'].values)
a_list.append(df['iso'].tolist())

```

Either way, I get a list with lists, numpy arrays or series inside it, and I would like to have directly the records.

Answer: 
Your problem arises from the fact that `df['iso'].tolist()` creates a list. The list is appended (given a place in the list at the single index), so you get a list of list. You can try:

```
a_list.extend(df['iso'].tolist())

```
This example should be enough:

```
myList = df['iso'].tolist() 
print(myList)

```

Output:

> 
> ['x', 'y', 'z', 'w']
> 
> 
>