Check if all elements in a list are identical

Question

I need a function which takes in a list and outputs True if all elements in the input list evaluate as equal to each other using the standard equal

Answer 1

This is another option, faster than len(set(x))==1 for long lists (uses short circuit)

def constantList(x):
    return x and [x[0]]*len(x) == x

Answer 2

You can use .nunique() to find number of unique items in a list.

def identical_elements(list):
    series = pd.Series(list)
    if series.nunique() == 1: identical = True
    else:  identical = False
    return identical



identical_elements(['a', 'a'])
Out[427]: True

identical_elements(['a', 'b'])
Out[428]: False

Answer 3

Check if all elements equal to the first.

np.allclose(array, array[0])

Answer 4

A solution faster than using set() that works on sequences (not iterables) is to simply count the first element. This assumes the list is non-empty (but that's trivial to check, and decide yourself what the outcome should be on an empty list)

x.count(x[0]) == len(x)

some simple benchmarks:

>>> timeit.timeit('len(set(s1))<=1', 's1=[1]*5000', number=10000)
1.4383411407470703
>>> timeit.timeit('len(set(s1))<=1', 's1=[1]*4999+[2]', number=10000)
1.4765670299530029
>>> timeit.timeit('s1.count(s1[0])==len(s1)', 's1=[1]*5000', number=10000)
0.26274609565734863
>>> timeit.timeit('s1.count(s1[0])==len(s1)', 's1=[1]*4999+[2]', number=10000)
0.25654196739196777

Answer 5

If you're interested in something a little more readable (but of course not as efficient,) you could try:

def compare_lists(list1, list2):
    if len(list1) != len(list2): # Weed out unequal length lists.
        return False
    for item in list1:
        if item not in list2:
            return False
    return True

a_list_1 = ['apple', 'orange', 'grape', 'pear']
a_list_2 = ['pear', 'orange', 'grape', 'apple']

b_list_1 = ['apple', 'orange', 'grape', 'pear']
b_list_2 = ['apple', 'orange', 'banana', 'pear']

c_list_1 = ['apple', 'orange', 'grape']
c_list_2 = ['grape', 'orange']

print compare_lists(a_list_1, a_list_2) # Returns True
print compare_lists(b_list_1, b_list_2) # Returns False
print compare_lists(c_list_1, c_list_2) # Returns False

Answer 6

Can use map and lambda

lst = [1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1]

print all(map(lambda x: x == lst[0], lst[1:]))