Iterate over pairs in a list (circular fashion) in Python

Question

The problem is easy, I want to iterate over each element of the list and the next one in pairs (wrapping the last one with the first).

I\'ve thought about two unpyth

Answer 1

I, as always, like tee:

from itertools import tee, izip, chain

def pairs(iterable):
    a, b = tee(iterable)
    return izip(a, chain(b, [next(b)]))

Answer 2

I'd do it like this (mostly because I can read this):

class Pairs(object):
    def __init__(self, start):
        self.i = start
    def next(self):
        p, p1 = self.i, self.i + 1
        self.i = p1
        return p, p1
    def __iter__(self):
        return self

if __name__ == "__main__":
    x = Pairs(0)
    y = 1
    while y < 20:
        print x.next()
        y += 1

gives:

(0, 1)
(1, 2)
(2, 3)
(3, 4)
(4, 5)
(5, 6)
(6, 7)
(7, 8)
(8, 9)

Answer 3

This infinitely cycles, for good or ill, but is algorithmically very clear.

from itertools import tee, cycle

def nextn(iterable,n=2):
    ''' generator that yields a tuple of the next n items in iterable.
    This generator cycles infinitely '''
    cycled = cycle(iterable)
    gens = tee(cycled,n)

    # advance the iterators, this is O(n^2)
    for (ii,g) in zip(xrange(n),gens):
        for jj in xrange(ii):
            gens[ii].next()

    while True:
        yield tuple([x.next() for x in gens])


def test():
    data = ((range(10),2),
        (range(5),3),
        (list("abcdef"),4),)
    for (iterable, n) in data:
        gen = nextn(iterable,n)
        for j in range(len(iterable)+n):
            print gen.next()            


test()

gives:

(0, 1)
(1, 2)
(2, 3)
(3, 4)
(4, 5)
(5, 6)
(6, 7)
(7, 8)
(8, 9)
(9, 0)
(0, 1)
(1, 2)
(0, 1, 2)
(1, 2, 3)
(2, 3, 4)
(3, 4, 0)
(4, 0, 1)
(0, 1, 2)
(1, 2, 3)
(2, 3, 4)
('a', 'b', 'c', 'd')
('b', 'c', 'd', 'e')
('c', 'd', 'e', 'f')
('d', 'e', 'f', 'a')
('e', 'f', 'a', 'b')
('f', 'a', 'b', 'c')
('a', 'b', 'c', 'd')
('b', 'c', 'd', 'e')
('c', 'd', 'e', 'f')
('d', 'e', 'f', 'a')

Answer 4

To answer your question about solving for the general case:

import itertools

def pair(series, n):
    s = list(itertools.tee(series, n))
    try:
        [ s[i].next() for i in range(1, n) for j in range(i)]
    except StopIteration:
        pass
    while True:
        result = []
        try:
            for j, ss in enumerate(s):
                result.append(ss.next())
        except StopIteration:
            if j == 0:
                break
            else:
                s[j] = iter(series)
                for ss in s[j:]:
                    result.append(ss.next())
        yield result

The output is like this:

>>> for a in pair(range(10), 2):
...     print a
...
[0, 1]
[1, 2]
[2, 3]
[3, 4]
[4, 5]
[5, 6]
[6, 7]
[7, 8]
[8, 9]
[9, 0]
>>> for a in pair(range(10), 3):
...     print a
...
[0, 1, 2]
[1, 2, 3]
[2, 3, 4]
[3, 4, 5]
[4, 5, 6]
[5, 6, 7]
[6, 7, 8]
[7, 8, 9]
[8, 9, 0]
[9, 0, 1]

Answer 5

[(i,(i+1)%len(range(10))) for i in range(10)]

replace range(10) with the list you want.

In general "circular indexing" is quite easy in python; just use:

a[i%len(a)] 

Answer 6

Even shorter version of Fortran's zip * range solution (with lambda this time;):

group = lambda t, n: zip(*[t[i::n] for i in range(n)])

group([1, 2, 3, 3], 2)

gives:

[(1, 2), (3, 4)]