question regarding list comprehensions

Pat Pat at junk.com
Mon Oct 20 12:49:10 EDT 2008


Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Oct 2008 10:20:03 -0400, Pat wrote:
> 
>> Finally, if someone could point me to a good tutorial or explain list
>> compressions I would be forever in your debt.
> 
> Think of a for-loop:
> 
> for x in (1, 2, 3):
>     x
> 
> Creates x=1, then x=2, then x=3. It doesn't do anything with the x's, but 
> just creates them. Let's turn it into a list comp, and collect the x's:
> 
>>>> [x for x in (1, 2, 3)]
> [1, 2, 3]
> 
> 
> 
> for x in (1, 2, 3):
>     2*x+1
> 
> Creates x=1, then evaluates 2*x+1 = 3. Then it repeats for x=2, then x=3. 
> Here it is as a list comp:
> 
>>>> [2*x+1 for x in (1, 2, 3)]
> [3, 5, 7]
> 
> 
> 
> for x in (1, 2, 3):
>     if x != 2:
>         2*x+1
> 
> Here it is as a list comp:
> 
>>>> [2*x+1 for x in (1, 2, 3) if x != 2]
> [3, 7]
> 
> 
> You can use any sort of sequence inside a list comp, not just a tuple.
> 
>>>> [c.upper() for c in "abcd"]
> ['A', 'B', 'C', 'D']
> 
> 
> You can nest list comps:
> 
>>>> [y+1 for y in [2*x+1 for x in (1, 2, 3)]]
> [4, 6, 8]
> 
> 
> Advanced: you can use tuple-unpacking:
> 
>>>> [(y,x) for (x,y) in [(1,2), (3, 4)]]
> [(2, 1), (4, 3)]
> 
> and also multiple for-loops:
> 
>>>> [(x,c) for x in (1, 2) for c in "abc"]
> [(1, 'a'), (1, 'b'), (1, 'c'), (2, 'a'), (2, 'b'), (2, 'c')]
> 
> 
> 
> That last one is close to:
> 
> for x in (1, 2):
>     for c in "abc":
>         (x, c)
> 
> 

Thank you.  I think that clears up the mystery a bit.  I added your note 
to my snippets file. When I have a situation that I can't resolve, I'll 
ask with the specifics.

I really do try to learn this as much as possible on my own without just 
flinging a question onto the forum.



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