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pythontupleslist-comprehensionflatten

Python list comprehension, unpacking and multiple operations


I want to unpack the tuples I create by doing the following so he the result is just one simple list. I can get the desired result in 2-3 lines but surely there is a oneliner list.comp?

>>> x = range(10)
>>> y = [(i,j**2) for i,j in zip(x,x)]
>>> y
[(0, 0), (1, 1), (2, 4), (3, 9), (4, 16), (5, 25), (6, 36), (7, 49), (8, 64), (9, 81)]

What I want is result = [0,0,1,1,2,4,3,9.....]

Doing

y = len(x)*[0]
y[::2] = x
y[1::2] = [i**2 for i in x]

Gives what I want but what if I need the more general case:

y = [(i, sqrt(i), i**3, some_operation_on_i, f(i), g(i)) for i in x]

Eg I should be able to get a straight list like result where I only specified one operation (square) to follow each i but now with an arbitrary number of operations following each i.


Solution

  • Use a nested list comprehension:

    result = [a for tup in y for a in tup]
    

    Example:

    >>> x = range(10)
    >>> y = [(i,j**2) for i,j in zip(x,x)]
    >>> [a for tup in y for a in tup]
    [0, 0, 1, 1, 2, 4, 3, 9, 4, 16, 5, 25, 6, 36, 7, 49, 8, 64, 9, 81]
    

    This will work fine for your more general case as well, or you could do it all in one step:

    y = [a for i in x for a in (i, sqrt(i), i**3, some_operation_on_i, f(i), g(i))]
    

    In case the nested list comprehensions look odd, here is how this would look as a normal for loop:

    y = []
    for i in x:
        for a in (i, sqrt(i), i**3, some_operation_on_i, f(i), g(i)):
            y.append(a)