Understanding list comprenesions (split from Copying the list elements)

dshimer

Barton, let me jump in here for a second. The syntax you explained to me recently works for this, then you can remove something from l2 without it affecting l1 (this is just stating the facts). However while trying my newest favorite cool python trick, I noticed that when I do it as listed below it returns the list of "None"s which don't really affect anything and the copied list is fine, but the question is why, and how do you avoid them.

May 7 '07 #1

bartonc

Barton, let me jump in here for a second. The syntax you explained to me recently works for this, then you can remove something from l2 without it affecting l1 (this is just stating the facts). However while trying my newest favorite cool python trick, I noticed that when I do it as listed below it returns the list of "None"s which don't really affect anything and the copied list is fine, but the question is why, and how do you avoid them.

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1. >>> l1=[1,2,3,4]
2. >>> l2=[]
3. >>> [l2.append(i) for i in l1]
4. [None, None, None, None]
5. >>> l2
6. [1, 2, 3, 4]
7. >>> l2.remove(3)
8. >>> l1
9. [1, 2, 3, 4]
10. >>> l2
11. [1, 2, 4]
12. >>> 

is a function.
None is what that function returns. The fact that the fuction succeeded in modifying its (mutable) object is not reflected in the return value.

The thing about list comprehensions is that they act like loops, but are not always appropiate to use in place of a loop. So, if you want a list of things generated by a comprehension:

May 7 '07 #2

bartonc

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1. l2.append(i)

is a function.
None is what that function returns. The fact that the fuction succeeded in modifying its (mutable) object is not reflected in the return value.

The thing about list comprehensions is that they act like loops, but are not always appropiate to use in place of a loop. So, if you want a list of things generated by a comprehension:

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1. >>> l = [i for i in range(4)]
2. >>> l
3. [0, 1, 2, 3]
4. >>> 

A really neat part of comprehensions it the 'predicate':

May 7 '07 #3