I am trying to use print inside lambda. Something like that:
lambda x: print x
I understand, that in Python 2.7 print is not a function. So, basically, my question is: Is there a pretty way to use print as function in Python 2.7?
You can import print_function from the __future__ and use it as a function like this
from __future__ import print_function
map(print, [1, 2, 3])
# 1
# 2
# 3
The question is about Python 2, but I ended up here from Google trying to use the print function inside a lambda in Python 3. I'm adding this answer for context for others that come here for the same.
If you only want to see the code that works and not how I arrived there, skip to the last code sample at the bottom. I wanted to clearly document what didn't work for learning purposes.
Desired result
Let's suppose you want to define a lambda print_list that prints each item of a list with a newline in between.
lst = [1, 2, 3]
print_list = lambda lst: ...
The desired output is:
1
2
3
And there should be no unused return value.
Attempt 1 - A map doesn't evaluate the print function in Python 3
To start, here's what doesn't work well in Python 3:
map(print, lst)
However, the output is somewhat counterintuitively not printed lines, because the map call in Python 3 returns an iterator instead of an evaluated list.
Output:
n/a
Return value:
<map at 0x111b3a6a0>
Attempt 2 - Evaluate the map iterator
You can realize the printing by passing the map result to list(...), which produces the ideal output, but has the side effect of returning a list of nulls (as evaluated in the REPL).
list(map(print, lst))
Output:
1
2
3
Return value:
[None, None, None]
You could workaround this by using the underscore throwaway variable convention:
_ = list(map(print, lst))
A similar approach is calling print inside a list comprehension:
[print(i) for i in lst]
I don't love these approaches because they both still generate an unused return value.
Attempt 3 - Apply the unpacking operator to the map iterator
Like this:
[*map(print, [1, 2, 3])]
(This still returns a list of nulls which is non-ideal.)
In the comments above #thefourtheye suggests using a one-line for loop:
for item in [1, 2, 3]: print(item)
This works fine for most cases and avoids the side effect. Attempting to put this in a lambda throws a SyntaxError. I tried wrapping it in parens without success; though there is probably a way to achieve this, I haven't figured it out.
(SOLUTION!) Attempt 4 - Apply the unpacking operator inside of the print call
The answer I arrived at is to explode the list inside the print call alongside using the separator arg:
print(*lst, sep='\n')
Output:
1
2
3
This produces the intended result without a return value.
Finally, let's wrap it up in a lambda to use as desired:
print_list = lambda lst: print(*lst, sep='\n')
print_list([1, 2, 3])
This was the best solution for my use case in Python 3.
Related questions
Why map(print, a_list) doesn't work?
Print doesnt print when it's in map, Python
If you don't want to import from __future__ you can just make the lambda write to the standard output:
>>>import sys
>>>l = lambda x : sys.stdout.write(x)
>>>l('hi')
'hi'
I guess there is another scenario people may be interested in: "print out the intermediate step value of the lambda function variables"
For instance, say I want to find out the charset of a collection of char list:
In [5]: instances = [["C","O","c","1","c","c","c","c","c","1","O","C","C","N","C"],
...: ["C","C","O","C","(","=","O",")","C","C","(","=","O",")","c"],
...: ["C","N","1","C","C","N","(","C","c","2","c","c","c","(","N"],
...: ["C","l","c","1","c","c","c","2","c","(","N","C","C","C","["],
...: ["C","C","c","1","c","c","c","(","N","C","(","=","S",")","N"]]
one way of doing this is to use reduce:
def build_charset(instances):
return list(functools.reduce((lambda x, y: set(y) | x), instances, set()))
In this function, reduce takes a lambda function with two variables x, y, which at the beginning I thought it would be like x -> instance, and y -> set(). But its results give a different story, so I want to print their value on the fly. lambda function, however, only take a single expression, while the print would introduce another one.
Inspired by set(y) | x, I tried this one and it worked:
lambda x, y: print(x, y) or set(y) | x
Note that print() is of NoneType, so you cannot do and, xor these kinds of operation that would change the original value. But or works just fine in my case.
Hope this would be helpful to those who also want to see what's going on during the procedure.
Related
So I'm trying to do this.
a = []
map(lambda x: a.append(x),(i for i in range(1,5)))
I know map takes a function but so why doesn't it append to the list? Or is append not a function?
However printing a results to a still being empty
now an interesting thing is this works
a = []
[a.append(i) for i in range(5)]
print(a)
aren't they basically "saying" the same thing?
It's almost as if that list comprehension became some sort of hybrid list-comprehension function thing
So why doesn't the lambda and map approach work?
I am assuming you are using Python 3.x , the actual reason why your code with map() does not work is because in Python 3.x , map() returns a generator object , unless you iterate over the generator object returned by map() , the lambda function is not called . Try doing list(map(...)) , and you should see a getting filled.
That being said , what you are doing does not make much sense , you can just use -
a = list(range(5))
append() returns None so it doesn't make sense using that in conjunction with map function. A simple for loop would suffice:
a = []
for i in range(5):
a.append(i)
print a
Alternatively if you want to use list comprehensions / map function;
a = range(5) # Python 2.x
a = list(range(5)) # Python 3.x
a = [i for i in range(5)]
a = map(lambda i: i, range(5)) # Python 2.x
a = list(map(lambda i: i, range(5))) # Python 3.x
[a.append(i) for i in range(5)]
The above code does the appending too, however it also creates a list of None values as the size of range(5) which is totally a waste of memory.
>>> a = []
>>> b = [a.append(i) for i in range(5)]
>>> print a
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
>>> print b
[None, None, None, None, None]
The functions map and filter have as first argument a function reference that is called for each element in the sequence (list, tuple, etc.) provided as second argument AND the result of this call is used to create the resulting list
The function reduce has as first argument a function reference that is called for first 2 elems in the sequence provided as second argument AND the result is used together with the third elem in another call, then the result is used with the fourth elem, and so on. A single value results in the end.
>>> map(lambda e: e+10, [i for i in range(5)])
[10, 11, 12, 13, 14]
>>> filter(lambda e: e%2, [i for i in range(5)])
[1, 3]
>>> reduce(lambda e1, e2: e1+e2, [i for i in range(5)])
10
Explanations:
map example: adds 10 to each elem of list [0,1,2,3,4]
filter example: keeps only elems that are odd of list [0,1,2,3,4]
reduce example: add first 2 elems of list [0,1,2,3,4], then the result and the third elem of list, then the result and fourth elem, and so on.
This map doesn't work because the append() method returns None and not a list:
>>> a = []
>>> type(a.append(1))
<class 'NoneType'>
To keep it functional why not use reduce instead?
>>> from functools import reduce
>>> reduce(lambda p, x: p+[x], (i for i in range(5)), [])
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
Lambda function will not get triggered unless you wrap the call to map function in list() like below
list(map(lambda x: a.append(x),(i for i in range(1,5))))
map only returns a generator object which needs to be iterated in order to create a list. Above code will get the lambda called.
However this code does not make much sense considering what you are trying to achieve
primes = [2,3,5,7..] (prime numbers)
map(lambda x:print(x),primes)
It does not print anything.
Why is that?
I've tried
sys.stdout.write(x)
too, but doesn't work either.
Since lambda x: print(x) is a syntax error in Python < 3, I'm assuming Python 3. That means map returns a generator, meaning to get map to actually call the function on every element of a list, you need to iterate through the resultant generator.
Fortunately, this can be done easily:
list(map(lambda x:print(x),primes))
Oh, and you can get rid of the lambda too, if you like:
list(map(print,primes))
But, at that point you are better off with letting print handle it:
print(*primes, sep='\n')
NOTE: I said earlier that '\n'.join would be a good idea. That is only true for a list of str's.
This works for me:
>>> from __future__ import print_function
>>> map(lambda x: print(x), primes)
2
3
5
7
17: [None, None, None, None]
Are you using Python 2.x where print is a statement, not a function?
Alternatively, you can unpack it by putting * before map(...) like the following
[*map(...)]
or
{*map(...)}
Choose the output you desire, a list or a dictionary.
Another reason why you could be seeing this is that you're not evaluating the results of the map function. It returns a generator (an iterable) that evaluates your function lazily and not an actual list.
primes = [2,3,5,7]
map(print, primes) # no output, because it returns a generator
primes = [2,3,5,7]
for i in map(print, primes):
pass # prints 2,3,5,7
Alternately, you can do list(map(print, primes)) which will also force the generator to be evaluated and call the print function on each member of your list.
I need to simplify my code as much as possible: it needs to be one line of code.
I need to put a for loop inside a lambda expression, something like that:
x = lambda x: (for i in x : print i)
Just in case, if someone is looking for a similar problem...
Most solutions given here are one line and are quite readable and simple. Just wanted to add one more that does not need the use of lambda(I am assuming that you are trying to use lambda just for the sake of making it a one line code).
Instead, you can use a simple list comprehension.
[print(i) for i in x]
BTW, the return values will be a list on None s.
Since a for loop is a statement (as is print, in Python 2.x), you cannot include it in a lambda expression. Instead, you need to use the write method on sys.stdout along with the join method.
x = lambda x: sys.stdout.write("\n".join(x) + "\n")
To add on to chepner's answer for Python 3.0 you can alternatively do:
x = lambda x: list(map(print, x))
Of course this is only if you have the means of using Python > 3 in the future... Looks a bit cleaner in my opinion, but it also has a weird return value, but you're probably discarding it anyway.
I'll just leave this here for reference.
anon and chepner's answers are on the right track. Python 3.x has a print function and this is what you will need if you want to embed print within a function (and, a fortiori, lambdas).
However, you can get the print function very easily in python 2.x by importing from the standard library's future module. Check it out:
>>>from __future__ import print_function
>>>
>>>iterable = ["a","b","c"]
>>>map(print, iterable)
a
b
c
[None, None, None]
>>>
I guess that looks kind of weird, so feel free to assign the return to _ if you would like to suppress [None, None, None]'s output (you are interested in the side-effects only, I assume):
>>>_ = map(print, iterable)
a
b
c
>>>
If you are like me just want to print a sequence within a lambda, without get the return value (list of None).
x = range(3)
from __future__ import print_function # if not python 3
pra = lambda seq=x: map(print,seq) and None # pra for 'print all'
pra()
pra('abc')
lambda is nothing but an anonymous function means no need to define a function like def name():
lambda <inputs>: <expression>
[print(x) for x in a] -- This is the for loop in one line
a = [1,2,3,4]
l = lambda : [print(x) for x in a]
l()
output
1
2
3
4
We can use lambda functions in for loop
Follow below code
list1 = [1,2,3,4,5]
list2 = []
for i in list1:
f = lambda i: i /2
list2.append(f(i))
print(list2)
First of all, it is the worst practice to write a lambda function like x = some_lambda_function. Lambda functions are fundamentally meant to be executed inline. They are not meant to be stored. Thus when you write x = some_lambda_function is equivalent to
def some_lambda_funcion():
pass
Moving to the actual answer. You can map the lambda function to an iterable so something like the following snippet will serve the purpose.
a = map(lambda x : print(x),[1,2,3,4])
list(a)
If you want to use the print function for the debugging purpose inside the reduce cycle, then logical or operator will help to escape the None return value in the accumulator variable.
def test_lam():
'''printing in lambda within reduce'''
from functools import reduce
lam = lambda x, y: print(x,y) or x + y
print(reduce(lam,[1,2,3]))
if __name__ =='__main__':
test_lam()
Will print out the following:
1 2
3 3
6
You can make it one-liner.
Sample
myList = [1, 2, 3]
print_list = lambda list: [print(f'Item {x}') for x in list]
print_list(myList)
otherList = [11, 12, 13]
print_list(otherList)
Output
Item 1
Item 2
Item 3
Item 11
Item 12
Item 13
When I meet the situation I can do it in javascript, I always think if there's an foreach function it would be convenience. By foreach I mean the function which is described below:
def foreach(fn,iterable):
for x in iterable:
fn(x)
they just do it on every element and didn't yield or return something,i think it should be a built-in function and should be more faster than writing it with pure Python, but I didn't found it on the list,or it just called another name?or I just miss some points here?
Maybe I got wrong, cause calling an function in Python cost high, definitely not a good practice for the example. Rather than an out loop, the function should do the loop in side its body looks like this below which already mentioned in many python's code suggestions:
def fn(*args):
for x in args:
dosomething
but I thought foreach is still welcome base on the two facts:
In normal cases, people just don't care about the performance
Sometime the API didn't accept iterable object and you can't rewrite its source.
Every occurence of "foreach" I've seen (PHP, C#, ...) does basically the same as pythons "for" statement.
These are more or less equivalent:
// PHP:
foreach ($array as $val) {
print($val);
}
// C#
foreach (String val in array) {
console.writeline(val);
}
// Python
for val in array:
print(val)
So, yes, there is a "foreach" in python. It's called "for".
What you're describing is an "array map" function. This could be done with list comprehensions in python:
names = ['tom', 'john', 'simon']
namesCapitalized = [capitalize(n) for n in names]
Python doesn't have a foreach statement per se. It has for loops built into the language.
for element in iterable:
operate(element)
If you really wanted to, you could define your own foreach function:
def foreach(function, iterable):
for element in iterable:
function(element)
As a side note the for element in iterable syntax comes from the ABC programming language, one of Python's influences.
Other examples:
Python Foreach Loop:
array = ['a', 'b']
for value in array:
print(value)
# a
# b
Python For Loop:
array = ['a', 'b']
for index in range(len(array)):
print("index: %s | value: %s" % (index, array[index]))
# index: 0 | value: a
# index: 1 | value: b
map can be used for the situation mentioned in the question.
E.g.
map(len, ['abcd','abc', 'a']) # 4 3 1
For functions that take multiple arguments, more arguments can be given to map:
map(pow, [2, 3], [4,2]) # 16 9
It returns a list in python 2.x and an iterator in python 3
In case your function takes multiple arguments and the arguments are already in the form of tuples (or any iterable since python 2.6) you can use itertools.starmap. (which has a very similar syntax to what you were looking for). It returns an iterator.
E.g.
for num in starmap(pow, [(2,3), (3,2)]):
print(num)
gives us 8 and 9
The correct answer is "python collections do not have a foreach". In native python we need to resort to the external for _element_ in _collection_ syntax which is not what the OP is after.
Python is in general quite weak for functionals programming. There are a few libraries to mitigate a bit. I helped author one of these infixpy
pip install infixpy https://pypi.org/project/infixpy/
from infixpy import Seq
(Seq([1,2,3]).foreach(lambda x: print(x)))
1
2
3
Also see: Left to right application of operations on a list in Python 3
Here is the example of the "foreach" construction with simultaneous access to the element indexes in Python:
for idx, val in enumerate([3, 4, 5]):
print (idx, val)
Yes, although it uses the same syntax as a for loop.
for x in ['a', 'b']: print(x)
This does the foreach in python 3
test = [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,"test"]
for fetch in test:
print(fetch)
Look at this article. The iterator object nditer from numpy package, introduced in NumPy 1.6, provides many flexible ways to visit all the elements of one or more arrays in a systematic fashion.
Example:
import random
import numpy as np
ptrs = np.int32([[0, 0], [400, 0], [0, 400], [400, 400]])
for ptr in np.nditer(ptrs, op_flags=['readwrite']):
# apply random shift on 1 for each element of the matrix
ptr += random.choice([-1, 1])
print(ptrs)
d:\>python nditer.py
[[ -1 1]
[399 -1]
[ 1 399]
[399 401]]
If I understood you right, you mean that if you have a function 'func', you want to check for each item in list if func(item) returns true; if you get true for all, then do something.
You can use 'all'.
For example: I want to get all prime numbers in range 0-10 in a list:
from math import sqrt
primes = [x for x in range(10) if x > 2 and all(x % i !=0 for i in range(2, int(sqrt(x)) + 1))]
If you really want you can do this:
[fn(x) for x in iterable]
But the point of the list comprehension is to create a list - using it for the side effect alone is poor style. The for loop is also less typing
for x in iterable: fn(x)
I know this is an old thread but I had a similar question when trying to do a codewars exercise.
I came up with a solution which nests loops, I believe this solution applies to the question, it replicates a working "for each (x) doThing" statement in most scenarios:
for elements in array:
while elements in array:
array.func()
If you're just looking for a more concise syntax you can put the for loop on one line:
array = ['a', 'b']
for value in array: print(value)
Just separate additional statements with a semicolon.
array = ['a', 'b']
for value in array: print(value); print('hello')
This may not conform to your local style guide, but it could make sense to do it like this when you're playing around in the console.
In short, the functional programming way to do this is:
def do_and_return_fn(og_fn: Callable[[T], None]):
def do_and_return(item: T) -> T:
og_fn(item)
return item
return do_and_return
# where og_fn is the fn referred to by the question.
# i.e. a function that does something on each element, but returns nothing.
iterable = map(do_and_return_fn(og_fn), iterable)
All of the answers that say "for" loops are the same as "foreach" functions are neglecting the point that other similar functions that operate on iters in python such as map, filter, and others in itertools are lazily evaluated.
Suppose, I have an iterable of dictionaries coming from my database and I want to pop an item off of each dictionary element when the iterator is iterated over. I can't use map because pop returns the item popped, not the original dictionary.
The approach I gave above would allow me to achieve this if I pass lambda x: x.pop() as my og_fn,
What would be nice is if python had a built-in lazy function with an interface like I constructed:
foreach(do_fn: Callable[[T], None], iterable: Iterable)
Implemented with the function given before, it would look like:
def foreach(do_fn: Callable[[T], None], iterable: Iterable[T]) -> Iterable[T]:
return map(do_and_return_fn(do_fn), iterable)
# being called with my db code.
# Lazily removes the INSERTED_ON_SEC_FIELD on every element:
doc_iter = foreach(lambda x: x.pop(INSERTED_ON_SEC_FIELD, None), doc_iter)
No there is no from functools import foreach support in python. However, you can just implement in the same number of lines as the import takes, anyway:
foreach = lambda f, iterable: (*map(f, iterable),)
Bonus:
variadic support: foreach = lambda f, iterable, *args: (*map(f, iterable, *args),) and you can be more efficient by avoiding constructing the tuple of Nones
For learning purposes, I'm trying to make a function using Python that takes in another function and two arrays as parameters and calls the function parameter on each index of each array parameter. So this should call add on a1[0] & a2[0], a1[1] & a2[1], etc. But all I'm getting back is a generator object. What's wrong?
def add(a,b):
yield a + b
def generator(add,a1,a2):
for i in range(len(a1)):
yield add(a1[i],a2[i])
g = generator(add,a1,a2)
print g.next()
I've also tried replacing what I have for yield above with
yield map(add,a1[i],a2[i])
But that works even less. I get this:
TypeError: argument 2 to map() must support iteration
Your definition of add() is at least strange (I'm leaning twoards calling it "wrong"). You should return the result, not yield it:
def add(a, b):
return a + b
Now, your generator() will work, though
map(add, a1, a2)
is an easier and faster way to do (almost) the same thing. (If you want an iterator rather than a list, use itertools.imap() instead of map().)
You get a generator because your add is a generator. It should be just return a + b.
I'm trying to make a function using Python that takes in another function and two arrays as parameters and calls the function parameter on each index of each array parameter.
def my_function(func, array_1, array_2):
for e_1,e_2 in zip(array_1, array_2):
yield func(e_1,e_2)
Example:
def add(a, b):
return a + b
for result in my_function(add, [1, 2, 3], [9, 8, 7]):
print(result)
will print:
10
10
10
Now, a couple of notes:
The add function can be found in the operator module.
You see that I used zip, take a look at its the doc.
Even though what you actually need is izip() the generator expression under zip() which basically doesn't return a list but an iterator to each value.
my_function is almost like map(), the only difference is that my_function is a generator while map() gives you a list. Once again the stdlib gives you the generator version of map in the itertools module: imap()
Example, my_fuction is just like imap:
from operator import add
from itertools import imap
for result in imap(add, [1, 2, 3], [9, 8, 7]):
print(result)
#10
#10
#10
I obviously suppose that the add function was just a quick example, otherwise check the built-in sum.
As others have said, you are defining add incorrectly and it should return instead of yield. Also, you could import it:
from operator import add
The reason why this doesn't work:
yield map(add, a1[i], a2[i])
Is because map works on lists/iterables and not single values. If add were defined correctly this could work:
yield map(add, [a[i]], [a2[i]])
But you shouldn't actually do that because it's more complicated than it needs to be for no good reason (as Sven Marnach's answer shows, your generator function is just an attempt to implement map so it really shouldn't use map even if it is a learning exercise). Finally, if the point is to make a function that takes a function as a parameter, I wouldn't call the parameter "add"; otherwise, what's the point of making it at all?
def generator(f, a1, a2):
for x, y in zip(a1, a2):
yield f(x, y)
Speaking of which, take a look at zip.