Creating lists of lists in a pythonic way

Question

I\'m using a list of lists to store a matrix in python. I tried to initialise a 2x3 Zero matrix as follows.

mat=[[0]*2]*3

However, when I chang

Answer 1

This will work

col = 2
row = 3
[[0] * col for row in xrange(row)]

Answer 2

If the sizes involved are really only 2 and 3,

mat = [[0, 0], [0, 0], [0, 0]]

is easily best and hasn't been mentioned yet.

Answer 3

Is there anything itertools can't do? :)

>>> from itertools import repeat,izip
>>> rows=3
>>> cols=6
>>> A=map(list,izip(*[repeat(0,rows*cols)]*cols))
>>> A
[[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]]
>>> A[0][3] = 2
>>> A
[[0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]]

Answer 4

Use a list comprehension:

>>> mat = [[0]*2 for x in xrange(3)]
>>> mat[0][0] = 1
>>> mat
[[1, 0], [0, 0], [0, 0]]

Or, as a function:

def matrix(rows, cols):
    return [[0]*cols for x in xrange(rows)]

Answer 5

Try this:

>>> cols = 6
>>> rows = 3
>>> a = [[0]*cols for _ in [0]*rows]
>>> a
[[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]]
>>> a[0][3] = 2
>>> a
[[0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]]

This is also discussed in this answer:

>>> lst_2d = [[0] * 3 for i in xrange(3)]
>>> lst_2d
[[0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0]]
>>> lst_2d[0][0] = 5
>>> lst_2d
[[5, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0]]

Answer 6

I use

mat = [[0 for col in range(3)] for row in range(2)]

although depending on what you do with the matrix after you create it, you might take a look at using a NumPy array.