Print out a table of average scores of each person

[Sprewell184]

Hi, this is my first post. I apologize if I make any mistakes.
I have a problem where I need to take a list and print it out as a table of average
for each person. The list is : [('tom',4),('ben',5),('tom',8),('ben',12)]

So far my code is:

def getAverage(list):
    list = [('tom',4),('ben',5),('tom',8),('ben',12)]
    for item in list:
....
....

I know the formula to take average and sum but i'm not sure how to do it here
since there are two same names of each.
I have to print a table of average score for both persons. Not sure how to start.
Any help would be great!

[TrustyTony]

Try with name, points instead of item at line 3. list is built in type so change it to something better describing the purpose. Line 2 does not belong in function as it overwrites the parameter.

[JoshuaBurleson]

I like dictionaries, I made a function see if you can tell what it does from this:

>>> grade_buk=[('tom',4),('ben',5),('tom',8),('ben',12)]
>>> grades=average(grade_buk)

>>> for key in grades:
	print(key.title()+':',grades[key])

	
Ben: 8.5
Tom: 6.0

[TrustyTony]

I like (built in) functions and generators:

>>> def nth_for(name, seq, n=1):
	return [item[n] for item in seq if item[0]==name]
>>> def names(seq):
	return set(name for name, _ in seq)
>>> names(grade_buk)
set(['ben', 'tom'])
>>> average(nth_for('ben', grade_buk))
8.5