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

Do you want duplicates? If not maybe you should use sets instead:

>>> set([1, 2, 3, 4, 5]).intersection(set([9, 8, 7, 6, 5]))
set([5])

Answer 2

>>> s = ['a','b','c']   
>>> f = ['a','b','d','c']  
>>> ss= set(s)  
>>> fs =set(f)  
>>> print ss.intersection(fs)   
   **set(['a', 'c', 'b'])**  
>>> print ss.union(fs)        
   **set(['a', 'c', 'b', 'd'])**  
>>> print ss.union(fs)  - ss.intersection(fs)   
   **set(['d'])**

Answer 3

You can use:

a = [1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 6, 7, 8]
b = [1, 7, 0, 9]
same_values = set(a) & set(b)
print same_values

Output:

set([1, 7, 9])

Answer 4

you can | for set union and & for set intersection.
for example:

    set1={1,2,3}
    set2={3,4,5}
    print(set1&set2)
    output=3

    set1={1,2,3}
    set2={3,4,5}
    print(set1|set2)
    output=1,2,3,4,5

curly braces in the answer.

Answer 5

I prefer the set based answers, but here's one that works anyway

[x for x in a if x in b]

Answer 6

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

lista =set(a)
listb =set(b)   
print listb.intersection(lista)   
returnMatches = set(['5']) #output 

print " ".join(str(return) for return in returnMatches ) # remove the set()   

 5        #final output