Permutations between two lists of unequal length

I’m having trouble wrapping my head around a algorithm I’m try to implement. I have two lists and want to take particular combinations from the two lists.

Here’s an example.

names = ['a', 'b']
numbers = [1, 2]

the output in this case would be:

[('a', 1), ('b', 2)]
[('b', 1), ('a', 2)]

I might have more names than numbers, i.e. len(names) >= len(numbers). Here's an example with 3 names and 2 numbers:

names = ['a', 'b', 'c']
numbers = [1, 2]

output:

[('a', 1), ('b', 2)]
[('b', 1), ('a', 2)]
[('a', 1), ('c', 2)]
[('c', 1), ('a', 2)]
[('b', 1), ('c', 2)]
[('c', 1), ('b', 2)]

Solution 1:

The simplest way is to use itertools.product:

a = ["foo", "melon"]
b = [True, False]
c = list(itertools.product(a, b))
>> [("foo", True), ("foo", False), ("melon", True), ("melon", False)]

Solution 2:

May be simpler than the simplest one above:

>>> a = ["foo", "bar"]
>>> b = [1, 2, 3]
>>> [(x,y) for x in a for y in b]  # for a list
[('foo', 1), ('foo', 2), ('foo', 3), ('bar', 1), ('bar', 2), ('bar', 3)]
>>> ((x,y) for x in a for y in b)  # for a generator if you worry about memory or time complexity.
<generator object <genexpr> at 0x1048de850>

without any import

Solution 3:

Note: This answer is for the specific question asked above. If you are here from Google and just looking for a way to get a Cartesian product in Python, itertools.product or a simple list comprehension may be what you are looking for - see the other answers.

Suppose len(list1) >= len(list2). Then what you appear to want is to take all permutations of length len(list2) from list1 and match them with items from list2. In python:

import itertools
list1=['a','b','c']
list2=[1,2]

[list(zip(x,list2)) for x in itertools.permutations(list1,len(list2))]

Returns

[[('a', 1), ('b', 2)], [('a', 1), ('c', 2)], [('b', 1), ('a', 2)], [('b', 1), ('c', 2)], [('c', 1), ('a', 2)], [('c', 1), ('b', 2)]]

Solution 4:

I was looking for a list multiplied by itself with only unique combinations, which is provided as this function.

import itertools
itertools.combinations(list, n_times)

Here as an excerpt from the Python docs on itertools That might help you find what your looking for.

Combinatoric generators:

Iterator                                 | Results
-----------------------------------------+----------------------------------------
product(p, q, ... [repeat=1])            | cartesian product, equivalent to a 
                                         |   nested for-loop
-----------------------------------------+----------------------------------------
permutations(p[, r])                     | r-length tuples, all possible 
                                         |   orderings, no repeated elements
-----------------------------------------+----------------------------------------
combinations(p, r)                       | r-length tuples, in sorted order, no 
                                         |   repeated elements
-----------------------------------------+----------------------------------------
combinations_with_replacement(p, r)      | r-length tuples, in sorted order, 
                                         | with repeated elements
-----------------------------------------+----------------------------------------
product('ABCD', repeat=2)                | AA AB AC AD BA BB BC BD CA CB CC CD DA DB DC DD
permutations('ABCD', 2)                  | AB AC AD BA BC BD CA CB CD DA DB DC
combinations('ABCD', 2)                  | AB AC AD BC BD CD
combinations_with_replacement('ABCD', 2) | AA AB AC AD BB BC BD CC CD DD

Solution 5:

the best way to find out all the combinations for large number of lists is:

import itertools
from pprint import pprint

inputdata = [
    ['a', 'b', 'c'],
    ['d'],
    ['e', 'f'],
]
result = list(itertools.product(*inputdata))
pprint(result)

the result will be:

[('a', 'd', 'e'),
 ('a', 'd', 'f'),
 ('b', 'd', 'e'),
 ('b', 'd', 'f'),
 ('c', 'd', 'e'),
 ('c', 'd', 'f')]