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Lucas Mähn
Lucas Mähn

Reputation: 906

compare two lists (python)

I need to compare two lists in a program to see if there are matching strings. One of them is a txt document that I already imported. Thats what I did

    def compareLists(self, listA, listB):
    sameWords = list()

    for a in xrange(0,len(listA)):
        for b in xrange(0,len(listB)):
            if listA[a] == listB[b]:
                sameWords.append(listA[a])
                pass
            pass
        pass
    return sameWords

But if I run the program it doesnt show any matches although I know that there has to be one. I think its somewhere inside the if block.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 549

Answers (1)

Jack Ryan
Jack Ryan

Reputation: 1318

I am assuming the indentation is correct in your code. Continuing with your strategy, this code should work.

def compareLists(self, listA, listB):
    sameWords = list()

    for a in xrange(0,len(listA)):
        for b in xrange(0,len(listB)):
            if listA[a] == listB[b]:
                sameWords.append(listA[a])
    return sameWords

Alternatively, as @Efferalgan suggested, simply do the set intersection.

def compareLists(self, listA, listB):
    return list(set(listA) & set(listB))

Note: The set intersection will remove duplicate matching words from your result.

As you said, you are reading in the lines from a text file, and it looks like the newlines are still in there.

my_text_list = [s for s in open("my_text.txt").read().rsplit()]

Upvotes: 1

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