CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonstringlist
theamateurdataanalyst
theamateurdataanalyst

Reputation: 2834

How to iterate through a list of strings with different lengths?

Suppose I have

lists = ["ABC","AC","CCCC","BC"]

I want a new list where items in my new list are grouped by position based on lists meaning for each string in the list take the position 0("ABC" position 0 is "A") and make a string out of it.

position = ["AACB","BCCC","CC","C"]

I try:

for i in range(0,4): want = [lists[i] for stuff in lists]

and I get

IndexError: string index out of range

Which makes sense because all the strings are different size. Can anyone help?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 88

Answers (2)

dansalmo
dansalmo

Reputation: 11686

You can use this list comprehension:

>>> lists = ["ABC","AC","CCCC","BC"]
>>> [''.join([s[i:i+1] for s in lists]) for i, el in enumerate(lists)]
['AACB', 'BCCC', 'CC', 'C']

Using the slice notation prevents index errors on non-existing elements.

Upvotes: 2

Daniel
Daniel

Reputation: 42758

I think you might want this:

import itertools
lists = ["ABC","AC","CCCC","BC"]
position = map(''.join,itertools.izip_longest(*lists, fillvalue=''))

and you get:

['AACB', 'BCCC', 'CC', 'C']

edit: now with the new example...

Upvotes: 5

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