a = [1,2,3,4,5]
b = [1,3,5,6]
c = a and b
print c
actual output: [1,3,5,6]
expected output: [1,3,5]
How can we ac
Using list comprehensions is a pretty obvious one for me. Not sure about performance, but at least things stay lists.
[x for x in a if x in b]
Or "all the x values that are in A, if the X value is in B".
A functional way can be achieved using filter
and lambda
operator.
list1 = [1,2,3,4,5,6]
list2 = [2,4,6,9,10]
>>> list(filter(lambda x:x in list1, list2))
[2, 4, 6]
Edit: It filters out x that exists in both list1 and list, set difference can also be achieved using:
>>> list(filter(lambda x:x not in list1, list2))
[9,10]
Edit2: python3 filter
returns a filter object, encapsulating it with list
returns the output list.
Here's some Python 2 / Python 3 code that generates timing information for both list-based and set-based methods of finding the intersection of two lists.
The pure list comprehension algorithms are O(n^2), since in
on a list is a linear search. The set-based algorithms are O(n), since set search is O(1), and set creation is O(n) (and converting a set to a list is also O(n)). So for sufficiently large n the set-based algorithms are faster, but for small n the overheads of creating the set(s) make them slower than the pure list comp algorithms.
#!/usr/bin/env python
''' Time list- vs set-based list intersection
See http://stackoverflow.com/q/3697432/4014959
Written by PM 2Ring 2015.10.16
'''
from __future__ import print_function, division
from timeit import Timer
setup = 'from __main__ import a, b'
cmd_lista = '[u for u in a if u in b]'
cmd_listb = '[u for u in b if u in a]'
cmd_lcsa = 'sa=set(a);[u for u in b if u in sa]'
cmd_seta = 'list(set(a).intersection(b))'
cmd_setb = 'list(set(b).intersection(a))'
reps = 3
loops = 50000
def do_timing(heading, cmd, setup):
t = Timer(cmd, setup)
r = t.repeat(reps, loops)
r.sort()
print(heading, r)
return r[0]
m = 10
nums = list(range(6 * m))
for n in range(1, m + 1):
a = nums[:6*n:2]
b = nums[:6*n:3]
print('\nn =', n, len(a), len(b))
#print('\nn = %d\n%s %d\n%s %d' % (n, a, len(a), b, len(b)))
la = do_timing('lista', cmd_lista, setup)
lb = do_timing('listb', cmd_listb, setup)
lc = do_timing('lcsa ', cmd_lcsa, setup)
sa = do_timing('seta ', cmd_seta, setup)
sb = do_timing('setb ', cmd_setb, setup)
print(la/sa, lb/sa, lc/sa, la/sb, lb/sb, lc/sb)
output
n = 1 3 2
lista [0.082171916961669922, 0.082588911056518555, 0.0898590087890625]
listb [0.069530963897705078, 0.070394992828369141, 0.075379848480224609]
lcsa [0.11858987808227539, 0.1188349723815918, 0.12825107574462891]
seta [0.26900982856750488, 0.26902294158935547, 0.27298116683959961]
setb [0.27218389511108398, 0.27459001541137695, 0.34307217597961426]
0.305460649521 0.258469975867 0.440838458259 0.301898526833 0.255455833892 0.435697630214
n = 2 6 4
lista [0.15915989875793457, 0.16000485420227051, 0.16551494598388672]
listb [0.13000702857971191, 0.13060092926025391, 0.13543915748596191]
lcsa [0.18650484085083008, 0.18742108345031738, 0.19513416290283203]
seta [0.33592700958251953, 0.34001994132995605, 0.34146714210510254]
setb [0.29436492919921875, 0.2953648567199707, 0.30039691925048828]
0.473793098554 0.387009751735 0.555194537893 0.540689066428 0.441652573672 0.633583767462
n = 3 9 6
lista [0.27657914161682129, 0.28098297119140625, 0.28311991691589355]
listb [0.21585917472839355, 0.21679902076721191, 0.22272896766662598]
lcsa [0.22559309005737305, 0.2271728515625, 0.2323150634765625]
seta [0.36382699012756348, 0.36453008651733398, 0.36750602722167969]
setb [0.34979605674743652, 0.35533690452575684, 0.36164689064025879]
0.760194128313 0.59330170819 0.62005595016 0.790686848184 0.61710008036 0.644927481902
n = 4 12 8
lista [0.39616990089416504, 0.39746403694152832, 0.41129183769226074]
listb [0.33485794067382812, 0.33914685249328613, 0.37850618362426758]
lcsa [0.27405810356140137, 0.2745978832244873, 0.28249192237854004]
seta [0.39211201667785645, 0.39234519004821777, 0.39317893981933594]
setb [0.36988520622253418, 0.37011313438415527, 0.37571001052856445]
1.01034878821 0.85398540833 0.698928091731 1.07106176249 0.905302334456 0.740927452493
n = 5 15 10
lista [0.56792402267456055, 0.57422614097595215, 0.57740211486816406]
listb [0.47309303283691406, 0.47619009017944336, 0.47628307342529297]
lcsa [0.32805585861206055, 0.32813096046447754, 0.3349759578704834]
seta [0.40036201477050781, 0.40322518348693848, 0.40548801422119141]
setb [0.39103078842163086, 0.39722800254821777, 0.43811702728271484]
1.41852623806 1.18166313332 0.819398061028 1.45237674242 1.20986133789 0.838951479847
n = 6 18 12
lista [0.77897095680236816, 0.78187918663024902, 0.78467702865600586]
listb [0.629547119140625, 0.63210701942443848, 0.63321495056152344]
lcsa [0.36563992500305176, 0.36638498306274414, 0.38175487518310547]
seta [0.46695613861083984, 0.46992206573486328, 0.47583580017089844]
setb [0.47616910934448242, 0.47661614418029785, 0.4850609302520752]
1.66818870637 1.34819326075 0.783028414812 1.63591241329 1.32210827369 0.767878297495
n = 7 21 14
lista [0.9703209400177002, 0.9734041690826416, 1.0182771682739258]
listb [0.82394003868103027, 0.82625699043273926, 0.82796716690063477]
lcsa [0.40975093841552734, 0.41210508346557617, 0.42286920547485352]
seta [0.5086359977722168, 0.50968098640441895, 0.51014018058776855]
setb [0.48688101768493652, 0.4879908561706543, 0.49204087257385254]
1.90769222837 1.61990115188 0.805587768483 1.99293236904 1.69228211566 0.841583309951
n = 8 24 16
lista [1.204819917678833, 1.2206029891967773, 1.258256196975708]
listb [1.014998197555542, 1.0206191539764404, 1.0343101024627686]
lcsa [0.50966787338256836, 0.51018595695495605, 0.51319599151611328]
seta [0.50310111045837402, 0.50556015968322754, 0.51335406303405762]
setb [0.51472997665405273, 0.51948785781860352, 0.52113485336303711]
2.39478683834 2.01748351664 1.01305257092 2.34068341135 1.97190418975 0.990165516871
n = 9 27 18
lista [1.511646032333374, 1.5133969783782959, 1.5639569759368896]
listb [1.2461750507354736, 1.254518985748291, 1.2613379955291748]
lcsa [0.5565330982208252, 0.56119203567504883, 0.56451296806335449]
seta [0.5966339111328125, 0.60275578498840332, 0.64791703224182129]
setb [0.54694414138793945, 0.5508568286895752, 0.55375313758850098]
2.53362406013 2.08867620074 0.932788243907 2.76380331728 2.27843203069 1.01753187594
n = 10 30 20
lista [1.7777848243713379, 2.1453688144683838, 2.4085969924926758]
listb [1.5070111751556396, 1.5202279090881348, 1.5779800415039062]
lcsa [0.5954139232635498, 0.59703707695007324, 0.60746097564697266]
seta [0.61563014984130859, 0.62125110626220703, 0.62354087829589844]
setb [0.56723213195800781, 0.57257509231567383, 0.57460403442382812]
2.88774814689 2.44791645689 0.967161734066 3.13413984189 2.6567803378 1.04968299523
Generated using a 2GHz single core machine with 2GB of RAM running Python 2.6.6 on a Debian flavour of Linux (with Firefox running in the background).
These figures are only a rough guide, since the actual speeds of the various algorithms are affected differently by the proportion of elements that are in both source lists.
If, by Boolean AND, you mean items that appear in both lists, e.g. intersection, then you should look at Python's set and frozenset types.
If order is not important and you don't need to worry about duplicates then you can use set intersection:
>>> a = [1,2,3,4,5]
>>> b = [1,3,5,6]
>>> list(set(a) & set(b))
[1, 3, 5]
Make a set out of the larger one:
_auxset = set(a)
Then,
c = [x for x in b if x in _auxset]
will do what you want (preserving b
's ordering, not a
's -- can't necessarily preserve both) and do it fast. (Using if x in a
as the condition in the list comprehension would also work, and avoid the need to build _auxset
, but unfortunately for lists of substantial length it would be a lot slower).
If you want the result to be sorted, rather than preserve either list's ordering, an even neater way might be:
c = sorted(set(a).intersection(b))