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Python itertools.combinations: how to obtain the indices of the combined numbers


The result created by Python's itertools.combinations() is the combinations of numbers. For example:

a = [7, 5, 5, 4]
b = list(itertools.combinations(a, 2))

# b = [(7, 5), (7, 5), (7, 4), (5, 5), (5, 4), (5, 4)]

But I would like to also obtain the indices of the combinations such as:

index = [(0, 1), (0, 2), (0, 3), (1, 2), (1, 3), (2, 3)]

How can I do it?


Solution

  • You can use enumerate:

    >>> a = [7, 5, 5, 4]
    >>> list(itertools.combinations(enumerate(a), 2))
    [((0, 7), (1, 5)), ((0, 7), (2, 5)), ((0, 7), (3, 4)), ((1, 5), (2, 5)), ((1, 5), (3, 4)), ((2, 5), (3, 4))]
    >>> b = list((i,j) for ((i,_),(j,_)) in itertools.combinations(enumerate(a), 2))
    >>> b
    [(0, 1), (0, 2), (0, 3), (1, 2), (1, 3), (2, 3)]