CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpython-2.7
user2242044
user2242044

Reputation: 9213

Find string in list of list

What is wrong with my search within a list of list? The output should be It's there

mylist = [['a','b','c'],['d','e','f']]
if 'a' in mylist:
    print "It's there"
else:
    print "it's not there"

Upvotes: 0

Views: 76

Answers (3)

Malik Brahimi
Malik Brahimi

Reputation: 16711

Chain the nested lists and do as you normally would:

'a' in itertools.chain.from_iterable(mylist)

Alternatively, you can check each item in the list:

any('a' in item for item in mylist)

Upvotes: 3

inspectorG4dget
inspectorG4dget

Reputation: 113975

'a' is not in mylist; rather, it is in one of the lists contained within mylist:

In [240]: for sublist in mylist:
   .....:     if 'a' in sublist:
   .....:         print("'a' exists in", sublist)
   .....:         
'a' exists in ['a', 'b', 'c']

So, if you'd like to check if an element exists in any of many sub-lists:

In [241]: any('a' in sublist for sublist in mylist)
Out[241]: True

[More on any]

Upvotes: 2

amahfouz
amahfouz

Reputation: 2398

'a' is not in your list of course. Your list has two elements, each of which is a list. To look for 'a' within every list contained in your list, you need to flatten the lists into one list and search within that.

Upvotes: 0

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