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)