#13549: improve tutorial section about listcomps.

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Ezio Melotti 2011-12-13 14:50:21 +02:00
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@ -235,89 +235,139 @@ and works exactly like this.
List Comprehensions
-------------------
List comprehensions provide a concise way to create lists without resorting to
use of :func:`map`, :func:`filter` and/or :keyword:`lambda`. The resulting list
definition tends often to be clearer than lists built using those constructs.
Each list comprehension consists of an expression followed by a :keyword:`for`
clause, then zero or more :keyword:`for` or :keyword:`if` clauses. The result
will be a list resulting from evaluating the expression in the context of the
:keyword:`for` and :keyword:`if` clauses which follow it. If the expression
would evaluate to a tuple, it must be parenthesized. ::
List comprehensions provide a concise way to create lists.
Common applications are to make new lists where each element is the result of
some operations applied to each member of another sequence or iterable, or to
create a subsequence of those elements that satisfy a certain condition.
For example, assume we want to create a list of squares, like::
>>> squares = []
>>> for x in range(10):
... squares.append(x**2)
...
>>> squares
[0, 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81]
We can obtain the same result with::
squares = [x**2 for x in range(10)]
This is also equivalent to ``squares = map(lambda x: x**2, range(10))``,
but it's more concise and readable.
A list comprehension consists of brackets containing an expression followed
by a :keyword:`for` clause, then zero or more :keyword:`for` or :keyword:`if`
clauses. The result will be a new list resulting from evaluating the expression
in the context of the :keyword:`for` and :keyword:`if` clauses which follow it.
For example, this listcomp combines the elements of two lists if they are not
equal::
>>> [(x, y) for x in [1,2,3] for y in [3,1,4] if x != y]
[(1, 3), (1, 4), (2, 3), (2, 1), (2, 4), (3, 1), (3, 4)]
and it's equivalent to:
>>> combs = []
>>> for x in [1,2,3]:
... for y in [3,1,4]:
... if x != y:
... combs.append((x, y))
...
>>> combs
[(1, 3), (1, 4), (2, 3), (2, 1), (2, 4), (3, 1), (3, 4)]
Note how the order of the :keyword:`for` and :keyword:`if` statements is the
same in both these snippets.
If the expression is a tuple (e.g. the ``(x, y)`` in the previous example),
it must be parenthesized. ::
>>> vec = [-4, -2, 0, 2, 4]
>>> # create a new list with the values doubled
>>> [x*2 for x in vec]
[-8, -4, 0, 4, 8]
>>> # filter the list to exclude negative numbers
>>> [x for x in vec if x >= 0]
[0, 2, 4]
>>> # apply a function to all the elements
>>> [abs(x) for x in vec]
[4, 2, 0, 2, 4]
>>> # call a method on each element
>>> freshfruit = [' banana', ' loganberry ', 'passion fruit ']
>>> [weapon.strip() for weapon in freshfruit]
['banana', 'loganberry', 'passion fruit']
>>> vec = [2, 4, 6]
>>> [3*x for x in vec]
[6, 12, 18]
>>> [3*x for x in vec if x > 3]
[12, 18]
>>> [3*x for x in vec if x < 2]
[]
>>> [[x,x**2] for x in vec]
[[2, 4], [4, 16], [6, 36]]
>>> [x, x**2 for x in vec] # error - parens required for tuples
File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
[x, x**2 for x in vec]
>>> # create a list of 2-tuples like (number, square)
>>> [(x, x**2) for x in range(6)]
[(0, 0), (1, 1), (2, 4), (3, 9), (4, 16), (5, 25)]
>>> # the tuple must be parenthesized, otherwise an error is raised
>>> [x, x**2 for x in range(6)]
File "<stdin>", line 1
[x, x**2 for x in range(6)]
^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
>>> [(x, x**2) for x in vec]
[(2, 4), (4, 16), (6, 36)]
>>> vec1 = [2, 4, 6]
>>> vec2 = [4, 3, -9]
>>> [x*y for x in vec1 for y in vec2]
[8, 6, -18, 16, 12, -36, 24, 18, -54]
>>> [x+y for x in vec1 for y in vec2]
[6, 5, -7, 8, 7, -5, 10, 9, -3]
>>> [vec1[i]*vec2[i] for i in range(len(vec1))]
[8, 12, -54]
>>> # flatten a list using a listcomp with two 'for'
>>> vec = [[1,2,3], [4,5,6], [7,8,9]]
>>> [num for elem in vec for num in elem]
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
List comprehensions are much more flexible than :func:`map` and can be applied
to complex expressions and nested functions::
List comprehensions can contain complex expressions and nested functions::
>>> [str(round(355/113.0, i)) for i in range(1,6)]
>>> from math import pi
>>> [str(round(pi, i)) for i in range(1, 6)]
['3.1', '3.14', '3.142', '3.1416', '3.14159']
Nested List Comprehensions
--------------------------
''''''''''''''''''''''''''
If you've got the stomach for it, list comprehensions can be nested. They are a
powerful tool but -- like all powerful tools -- they need to be used carefully,
if at all.
The initial expression in a list comprehension can be any arbitrary expression,
including another list comprehension.
Consider the following example of a 3x3 matrix held as a list containing three
lists, one list per row::
Consider the following example of a 3x4 matrix implemented as a list of
3 lists of length 4::
>>> mat = [
... [1, 2, 3],
... [4, 5, 6],
... [7, 8, 9],
... ]
>>> matrix = [
... [1, 2, 3, 4],
... [5, 6, 7, 8],
... [9, 10, 11, 12],
... ]
Now, if you wanted to swap rows and columns, you could use a list
comprehension::
The following list comprehension will transpose rows and columns::
>>> print [[row[i] for row in mat] for i in [0, 1, 2]]
[[1, 4, 7], [2, 5, 8], [3, 6, 9]]
>>> [[row[i] for row in matrix] for i in range(4)]
[[1, 5, 9], [2, 6, 10], [3, 7, 11], [4, 8, 12]]
Special care has to be taken for the *nested* list comprehension:
As we saw in the previous section, the nested listcomp is evaluated in
the context of the :keyword:`for` that follows it, so this example is
equivalent to::
To avoid apprehension when nesting list comprehensions, read from right to
left.
>>> transposed = []
>>> for i in range(4):
... transposed.append([row[i] for row in matrix])
...
>>> transposed
[[1, 5, 9], [2, 6, 10], [3, 7, 11], [4, 8, 12]]
A more verbose version of this snippet shows the flow explicitly::
which, in turn, is the same as::
for i in [0, 1, 2]:
for row in mat:
print row[i],
print
>>> transposed = []
>>> for i in range(4):
... # the following 3 lines implement the nested listcomp
... transposed_row = []
... for row in matrix:
... transposed_row.append(row[i])
... transposed.append(transposed_row)
...
>>> transposed
[[1, 5, 9], [2, 6, 10], [3, 7, 11], [4, 8, 12]]
In real world, you should prefer built-in functions to complex flow statements.
In the real world, you should prefer built-in functions to complex flow statements.
The :func:`zip` function would do a great job for this use case::
>>> zip(*mat)
[(1, 4, 7), (2, 5, 8), (3, 6, 9)]
>>> zip(*matrix)
[(1, 5, 9), (2, 6, 10), (3, 7, 11), (4, 8, 12)]
See :ref:`tut-unpacking-arguments` for details on the asterisk in this line.