CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonnested-lists
Amal Sailendran
Amal Sailendran

Reputation: 331

find all occurences of a string and its indices in nested list python

I have a nested list in the following format:

[['john'],['jack','john','mary'],['howard','john'],['jude']...]

I want to find the first 3 or 5 indices of john that occurs in the nested list(since the list is really long) and return the indices like: (0,0),(1,1),(2,1) or in any format which is advisable.

I'm fairly new to nested list. Any help would be much appreciated.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1486

Answers (1)

Anton vBR
Anton vBR

Reputation: 18906

Question 1: Here is one way using a nested comprehension list. I will however look if there is a dupe. 

nested_list = [['john'],['jack','john','mary'],['howard','john'],['jude']]

out = [(ind,ind2) for ind,i in enumerate(nested_list) 
                  for ind2,y in enumerate(i) if y == 'john']

print(out)

Returns: [(0, 0), (1, 1), (2, 1)]

Update: Something similar found here Finding the index of an element in nested lists in python. The answer however only takes the first value which could be translated into:

out = next(((ind,ind2) for ind,i in enumerate(nested_list) 
                       for ind2,y in enumerate(i) if y == 'john'),None)
print(out) # (0,0)

Question 2: (from comment)

Yes this is quite easy by editing y == 'john' to: 'john' in y.

nested_list = [['john xyz'],['jack','john dow','mary'],['howard','john'],['jude']]

out = [(ind,ind2) for ind,i in enumerate(nested_list) 
                  for ind2,y in enumerate(i) if 'john' in y]
print(out)

Returns: [(0, 0), (1, 1), (2, 1)]

Question 3: (from comment)

The most efficient way to get the first N elements is to use pythons library itertools like this:

import itertools

nested_list = [['john xyz'],['jack','john dow','mary'],['howard','john'],['jude']]

gen = ((ind,ind2) for ind,i in enumerate(nested_list) 
                       for ind2,y in enumerate(i) if 'john' in y)

out = list(itertools.islice(gen, 2)) # <-- Next 2
print(out)

Returns: [(0, 0), (1, 1)]

This is also answered here: How to take the first N items from a generator or list in Python?

Question 3 extended:

And say now that you want to take them in chunks of N, then you can do this:

import itertools

nested_list = [['john xyz'],['jack','john dow','mary'],['howard','john'],['jude']]

gen = ((ind,ind2) for ind,i in enumerate(nested_list) 
                       for ind2,y in enumerate(i) if 'john' in y)

f = lambda x: list(itertools.islice(x, 2)) # Take two elements from generator

print(f(gen)) # calls the lambda function asking for 2 elements from gen
print(f(gen)) # calls the lambda function asking for 2 elements from gen
print(f(gen)) # calls the lambda function asking for 2 elements from gen

Returns:

[(0, 0), (1, 1)]
[(2, 1)]
[]

Upvotes: 6

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