How can I compare two lists in python and return matches

Question

I want to take two lists and find the values that appear in both.

a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
b = [9, 8, 7, 6, 5]

returnMatches(a, b)

would return

Answer 1

Quick way:

list(set(a).intersection(set(b)))

Answer 2

Can use itertools.product too.

>>> common_elements=[]
>>> for i in list(itertools.product(a,b)):
...     if i[0] == i[1]:
...         common_elements.append(i[0])

Answer 3

Use set.intersection(), it's fast and readable.

>>> set(a).intersection(b)
set([5])

Answer 4

another a bit more functional way to check list equality for list 1 (lst1) and list 2 (lst2) where objects have depth one and which keeps the order is:

all(i == j for i, j in zip(lst1, lst2))   

Answer 5

If you want a boolean value:

>>> a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
>>> b = [9, 8, 7, 6, 5]
>>> set(b) == set(a)  & set(b) and set(a) == set(a) & set(b)
False
>>> a = [3,1,2]
>>> b = [1,2,3]
>>> set(b) == set(a)  & set(b) and set(a) == set(a) & set(b)
True

Answer 6

You can use

def returnMatches(a,b):
       return list(set(a) & set(b))