Python, FOR looping - creating lists - list

Question

This is my code to create lists, but its so brutal and inelegant, you guys have some idea to make it much smoother?
Thing is, I want to write code, where you could create your own lists, choose how many of them you want to create and how much items each should have - NOT using while loop. I can manage creating certain number of lists by inputing the range in for loop (number_of_lists)
i = 0
number_of_lists = input('How many lists you want to make? >')
for cycle in range(number_of_lists): #this was originaly range(3),
item1 = raw_input('1. item > ') #and will only work now pro-
item2 = raw_input('2. item > ') #perly, if n_o_l is exact. 3
item3 = raw_input('3. item > ')
#everything is wrong with this
print "-------------------" #code, i need it much more au-
#tonomous, than it is now.
if i == 0:
list1 = [item1, item2, item3]
if i == 1:
list2 = [item1, item2, item3]
if i == 2:
list3 = [item1, item2, item3]
i += 1
print list1
print list2
print list3
Thing is I also want to avoid all that 'if i == int' thing.
Now it will only create 3 lists, right, because instead of number_of_lists i originally used integer 3 to make 3 lists.
Now you see my problem I hope. I need to create new lists from input and name them if possible, so instead of list1 i can name it DOGS or w/e.
I need it all much more simple and interconnected, I hope you understand my problem and maybe have some smooth solution, thanks :)
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Ok, I think I got it now - this is new version, doing pretty much what i want it to do:
number_of_lists = input('How many lists you want to make? >')
allItems = []
for cycle in range(int(number_of_lists)):
items = []
number_of_items = input('How much items in this list? >')
for i in range(int(number_of_items)):
item = raw_input(str(i+1) + ". item > ")
items.append(item)
allItems.append(items)
print("-------------------")
print allItems
If anyone has idea how to make this more effective and clear, let me know here! :) thanks for help guyz

Answer 1

You can add your lists to another list, that way it's dynamic like you want. Example below:
number_of_lists = input('How many lists you want to make? >')
allItems = []
for cycle in range(int(number_of_lists)):
items = []
for i in range(1, 4):
item = input(str(i) + ".item > ")
items.append(item)
allItems.append(items)
print("-------------------")
for items in allItems:
for item in items:
print(item)
print("-------------")
You'd still need to check if number_of_lists is an int before parsing it into an int. If the user types a letter it will throw an error.