need to write a recurive function to remove elements of list but keep the arrays in the result such as.
def remove_words(listx):
for element in listx:
if isinstance(element, list):
remove_words(element)
else:
listx.remove(element)
return listx
remove_words(["a", "b", ["c"]]) would return [[]]
My code returns ["b",[]] for some reason it's missing an element.
Do not remove elements from a collection while iterating it. Repeated calls to list.remove are also not ideal performance-wise since each removal (from a random index) is O(N). A simple way around both issues would be the following comprehension:
def remove_words(listx):
return [remove_words(e) for e in listx if isinstance(e, list)]
The seemingly missing base case is a list with no nested lists where an empty list is returned.
If you want to modify the list in-place, you can use slice assignment:
def remove_words(listx):
listx[:] = [remove_words(e) for e in listx if isinstance(e, list)]
def remove_words(listx):
if listx == []:
return []
elif not isinstance(listx[0], list):
return remove_words(listx[1:])
else:
return [remove_words(listx[0])] + remove_words(listx[1:])
print(remove_words(["a", "b", ["c"]]))
print(remove_words(["a", ["b",["c","d"],"c"], [["f"],["g"]],"h"]))
Related
This question already has answers here:
Remove all occurrences of a value from a list?
(26 answers)
Closed 1 year ago.
I want to remove the select element in sequence.
For example, I want to remove all 2 in sequence [1,2,3,2,3]
my code is
def remove_all(a_list, element):
for i in range(len(a_list)):
if element == a_list[i]:
a_list.remove(element)
return a_list
The output should be [1,3,3]
but the output of my code is [1,3,2,3]
I remove the first 2 but somehow the loop didn't go further to remove second 2. I wonder where is the problem of my code
Removing items in-place will almost certainly results in index errors.
[x for x in l if x != elem]
2 things.
You are modifying a list during iteration, I linked to a good read in my comment. also here
You return in the loop thus it stops at the return. Unindent the return, python is all about indentation unlike many other popular languages in this matter.
Try instead
Building another list for return:
def remove_all(a_list, element):
result = []
for ele in a_list:
if element != ele:
result.append(ele)
return result
Using a comprehension:
def remove_all(a_list, element):
return [ele for ele in a_list if ele != element]
a possible work-around is:
while element in a_list:
a_list.remove(element)
return element
But list comprehension works too, possibly even faster.
You should place the return after the loop finishes, something like:
def remove_all(a_list, element):
for i in a_list:
if element == i:
a_list.remove(element)
return a_list
a_list = [1, 2, 3, 2, 3]
result = remove_all(a_list, 2)
print(result)
Edit:
The code above does not work with the [2,2] case as pointed out in the comments.
Another solution would be:
myList = [2,2]
myList = list(filter((2).__ne__, myList))
print(myList)
Like that you don't copy the list anywhere, just is the list you are working on avoiding a list copy that can be expensive.
The __ne__ function checks that the element exists in the list returning True or False.
For nested lists, what would the pseudocode look like so that
mylist = [[1,2],[3,[4,5]],6]
def mydeepcopy(mylist)
>> [[1,2],[3,[4,5]],6]
where it returns a completely different list through all layers
here is all I can think of
def mycopy(mylist):
if mylist is not 1-dimensional:
mycopy(elem for elem in mylist)
else:
add mylist.copy() to new list
You have to collect the results of the recursion and return them.
def mycopy(mylist):
newlist = []
for element in mylist:
if isinstance(element, list):
newlist.append(mycopy(element))
else:
newlist.append(element)
return newlist
This is overly simplified, as it only deals with lists, not tuples and dictionaries.
Note that "is not 1-dimensional" is not something you test for the entire list. It can contain a mixture of nested lists and other objects, so you need to test each element in the loop.
I am new to Python and I'm not able to understand why I am getting the results with None values.
#Remove duplicate items from a list
def remove_duplicates(list):
unique_list = []
return [unique_list.append(item) for item in list if item not in unique_list]
print remove_duplicates([1,1,2,2]) -> result [None, None]
When I print the result it shows the following: [None, None]
PS: I've seen other solutions and also aware of the list(set(list)) but I am trying to understand why the above result with integers gives [None, None] output.
Although using a set is the proper way, the problem with your code, as the comments indicated, is that you are not actually returning unique_list from your function, you are returning the result of the list comprehension.
def remove_duplicates(my_list):
unique_list = []
do = [unique_list.append(item) for item in my_list if item not in unique_list]
return unique_list # Actually return the list!
print remove_duplicates([1,1,2,2]) -> result [1, 2]
Here I simply made a throwaway variable do that is useless, it just "runs" the comprehension. Understand?
That comprehension is storing a value each time you call unique_list.append(item) ... and that value is the result of the append method, which is None! So do equals [None, None].
However, your unique_list is in fact being populated correctly, so we can return that and now your function works as expected.
Of course, this is not a normal use for a list comprehension and really weird.
The problem with your code is that the method list.append returns None. You can test this easily with the following code:
myList=[1, 2, 3]
print myList.append(4)
So, a solution for you would issue would be
def remove_duplicates(myList):
alreadyIncluded = []
return [item for item in myList if item not in alreadyIncluded and not alreadyIncluded.append(item)]
print remove_duplicates([1,1,2,2])
The idea is that you will begin with an empty list of aldeady included elements and you will loop over all the elements in list, including them in the alreadyIncluded list. The not is necessary because the append will return None and not None is True, so the if will not be affected by the inclusion.
You were including a list of the result of the appends (always None), but what you need is a list of the elements that passed the if test.
I hope it helps.
As the other answers have explained, the reason you're getting a list of None values is because list.append returns None, and you're calling it in a list comprehension. That means you're building a list full of None values along side your list of unique values.
I would like to suggest that you ditch the list comprehension. Because you need to access outside state (the list of unique values seen so far), a comprehension can't easily do what you want. A regular for loop is much more appropriate:
def remove_duplicates(lst):
unique_list = []
for item in lst:
if item not in unique_list:
unique_list.append(item)
return unique_list
A more Pythonic approach however would be to use a set to handle the unique items, and to make your function a generator:
def remove_duplicates(lst):
uniques = set()
for item in lst:
if item not in unique_list:
yield item
uniques.add(item)
The itertools.ifilterfase function from the standard library can help improve this even further, as shown in the recipe in the docs (you'll have to scroll down a little to find the specific recipe):
def unique_everseen(iterable, key=None):
"List unique elements, preserving order. Remember all elements ever seen."
# unique_everseen('AAAABBBCCDAABBB') --> A B C D
# unique_everseen('ABBCcAD', str.lower) --> A B C D
seen = set()
seen_add = seen.add
if key is None:
for element in filterfalse(seen.__contains__, iterable):
seen_add(element)
yield element
else:
for element in iterable:
k = key(element)
if k not in seen:
seen_add(k)
yield element
What is the easiest (most pythonic way) to check, if the beginning of the list are exactly the elements of another list? Consider the following examples:
li = [1,4,5,3,2,8]
#Should return true
startsWithSublist(li, [1,4,5])
#Should return false
startsWithSublist(list2, [1,4,3])
#Should also return false, although it is contained in the list
startsWithSublist(list2, [4,5,3])
Sure I could iterate over the lists, but I guess there is an easier way. Both list will never contain the same elements twice, and the second list will always be shorter or equal long to the first list. Length of the list to match is variable.
How to do this in Python?
Use list slicing:
>>> li = [1,4,5,3,2,8]
>>> sublist = [1,4,5]
>>> li[:len(sublist)] == sublist
True
You can do it using all without slicing and creating another list:
def startsWithSublist(l,sub):
return len(sub) <= l and all(l[i] == ele for i,ele in enumerate(sub))
It will short circuit if you find non-matching elements or return True if all elements are the same, you can also use itertools.izip :
from itertools import izip
def startsWithSublist(l,sub):
return len(sub) <= l and all(a==b for a,b in izip(l,sub))
I'm new to python and trying to make a function Uniqueify(L) that will be given either a list of numbers or a list of strings (non-empty), and will return a list of the unique elements of that list.
So far I have:
def Uniquefy(x):
a = []
for i in range(len(x)):
if x[i] in a == False:
a.append(x[i])
return a
It looks like the if str(x[i]) in a == False: is failing, and that's causing the function to return a empty list.
Any help you guys can provide?
Relational operators all have exactly the same precedence and are chained. This means that this line:
if x[i] in a == False:
is evaluated as follows:
if (x[i] in a) and (a == False):
This is obviously not what you want.
The solution is to remove the second relational operator:
if x[i] not in a:
You can just create a set based on the list which will only contain unique values:
>>> s = ["a", "b", "a"]
>>> print set(s)
set(['a', 'b'])
The best option here is to use a set instead! By definition, sets only contain unique items and putting the same item in twice will not result in two copies.
If you need to create it from a list and need a list back, try this. However, if there's not a specific reason you NEED a list, then just pass around a set instead (that would be the duck-typing way anyway).
def uniquefy(x):
return list(set(x))
You can use the built in set type to get unique elements from a collection:
x = [1,2,3,3]
unique_elements = set(x)
You should use set() here. It reduces the in operation time:
def Uniquefy(x):
a = set()
for item in x:
if item not in a:
a.add(item)
return list(a)
Or equivalently:
def Uniquefy(x):
return list(set(x))
If order matters:
def uniquefy(x):
s = set()
return [i for i in x if i not in s and s.add(i) is None]
Else:
def uniquefy(x):
return list(set(x))