search in a multidimensional list in python

Question

I have a list of tuples, namely F = [(1,2,1), (2,3,0), (1,2,4)].

If I want to check whether (1,2,1) exists in the F I use F.__contains__((1,2,1)).

But how can I check whether (1,2,just any number) or (1,just any number,just any number) exists in the list?

I used F.__contains__((1,2,True)) but didn't work correctly.

Answer 1

In a comment Mohammad asked for a more generic search method. Here's one way to do it.

from itertools import zip_longest

F = [(1,2,1), (2,3,0), (1,2,4)]

def search_2d_list(needle, haystack):
    def equal_or_none(row):
        return all(q is None or q == i for q, i in zip_longest(needle, row))
    return any(equal_or_none(row) for row in haystack)

Results from terminal

>>> search_2d_list((1,), F)
True
>>> search_2d_list((1,2), F)
True
>>> search_2d_list((1,2,1), F)
True
>>> search_2d_list((1,2,3), F)
False
>>> search_2d_list((2,2,3), F)
False
>>> search_2d_list((2,2), F)
False
>>> search_2d_list((2,None,2), F)
False
>>> search_2d_list((2,None,0), F)
True