Python: split a list based on a condition?

Question

What\'s the best way, both aesthetically and from a performance perspective, to split a list of items into multiple lists based on a conditional? The equivalent of:

Answer 1

If you want to make it in FP style:

good, bad = [ sum(x, []) for x in zip(*(([y], []) if y in goodvals else ([], [y])
                                        for y in mylist)) ]

Not the most readable solution, but at least iterates through mylist only once.

Answer 2

If the list is made of groups and intermittent separators, you can use:

def split(items, p):
    groups = [[]]
    for i in items:
        if p(i):
            groups.append([])
        groups[-1].append(i)
    return groups

Usage:

split(range(1,11), lambda x: x % 3 == 0)
# gives [[1, 2], [3, 4, 5], [6, 7, 8], [9, 10]]

Answer 3

Sometimes, it looks like list comprehension is not the best thing to use !

I made a little test based on the answer people gave to this topic, tested on a random generated list. Here is the generation of the list (there's probably a better way to do, but it's not the point) :

good_list = ('.jpg','.jpeg','.gif','.bmp','.png')

import random
import string
my_origin_list = []
for i in xrange(10000):
    fname = ''.join(random.choice(string.lowercase) for i in range(random.randrange(10)))
    if random.getrandbits(1):
        fext = random.choice(good_list)
    else:
        fext = "." + ''.join(random.choice(string.lowercase) for i in range(3))

    my_origin_list.append((fname + fext, random.randrange(1000), fext))

And here we go

# Parand
def f1():
    return [e for e in my_origin_list if e[2] in good_list], [e for e in my_origin_list if not e[2] in good_list]

# dbr
def f2():
    a, b = list(), list()
    for e in my_origin_list:
        if e[2] in good_list:
            a.append(e)
        else:
            b.append(e)
    return a, b

# John La Rooy
def f3():
    a, b = list(), list()
    for e in my_origin_list:
        (b, a)[e[2] in good_list].append(e)
    return a, b

# Ants Aasma
def f4():
    l1, l2 = tee((e[2] in good_list, e) for e in my_origin_list)
    return [i for p, i in l1 if p], [i for p, i in l2 if not p]

# My personal way to do
def f5():
    a, b = zip(*[(e, None) if e[2] in good_list else (None, e) for e in my_origin_list])
    return list(filter(None, a)), list(filter(None, b))

# BJ Homer
def f6():
    return filter(lambda e: e[2] in good_list, my_origin_list), filter(lambda e: not e[2] in good_list, my_origin_list)

Using the cmpthese function, the best result is the dbr answer :

f1     204/s  --    -5%   -14%   -15%   -20%   -26%
f6     215/s     6%  --    -9%   -11%   -16%   -22%
f3     237/s    16%    10%  --    -2%    -7%   -14%
f4     240/s    18%    12%     2%  --    -6%   -13%
f5     255/s    25%    18%     8%     6%  --    -8%
f2     277/s    36%    29%    17%    15%     9%  --

Answer 4

Not sure if this is a good approach but it can be done in this way as well

IMAGE_TYPES = ('.jpg','.jpeg','.gif','.bmp','.png')
files = [ ('file1.jpg', 33L, '.jpg'), ('file2.avi', 999L, '.avi')]
images, anims = reduce(lambda (i, a), f: (i + [f], a) if f[2] in IMAGE_TYPES else (i, a + [f]), files, ([], []))

Answer 5

Yet another answer, short but "evil" (for list-comprehension side effects).

digits = list(range(10))
odd = [x.pop(i) for i, x in enumerate(digits) if x % 2]

>>> odd
[1, 3, 5, 7, 9]

>>> digits
[0, 2, 4, 6, 8]

Answer 6

First go (pre-OP-edit): Use sets:

mylist = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
goodvals = [1,3,7,8,9]

myset = set(mylist)
goodset = set(goodvals)

print list(myset.intersection(goodset))  # [1, 3, 7]
print list(myset.difference(goodset))    # [2, 4, 5, 6]

That's good for both readability (IMHO) and performance.

Second go (post-OP-edit):

Create your list of good extensions as a set:

IMAGE_TYPES = set(['.jpg','.jpeg','.gif','.bmp','.png'])

and that will increase performance. Otherwise, what you have looks fine to me.