List, dict, set comprehensions#
Python supports special expressions that allow for compact creation of lists, dictionaries, and sets:
list comprehensions
dict comprehensions
set comprehensions
These expressions not only enable more compact objects to be created but also create them faster. Although they require a certain habit of use and understanding at first, they are very often used.
List comprehensions#
List comprehension is an expression like:
In [1]: vlans = [f'vlan {num}' for num in range(10, 16)]
In [2]: print(vlans)
['vlan 10', 'vlan 11', 'vlan 12', 'vlan 13', 'vlan 14', 'vlan 15']
In general, it is an expression that converts an iterable object into a list. That is, a sequence of elements is converted and added to a new list.
Expression above is similar to this loop:
In [3]: vlans = []
In [4]: for num in range(10, 16):
...: vlans.append(f'vlan {num}')
...:
In [5]: print(vlans)
['vlan 10', 'vlan 11', 'vlan 12', 'vlan 13', 'vlan 14', 'vlan 15']
In list comprehensions you can use if. Thus, you can only add some objects to the list. For example, a loop selects only those elements that are digits, converts them and adds them to the resulting list only_digits:
In [6]: items = ['10', '20', 'a', '30', 'b', '40']
In [7]: only_digits = []
In [8]: for item in items:
...: if item.isdigit():
...: only_digits.append(int(item))
...:
In [9]: print(only_digits)
[10, 20, 30, 40]
A similar version with list comprehensions:
In [10]: items = ['10', '20', 'a', '30', 'b', '40']
In [11]: only_digits = [int(item) for item in items if item.isdigit()]
In [12]: print(only_digits)
[10, 20, 30, 40]
Of course, not all loops can be rewritten as a list comprehension but when it is possible to do so without making the expression more complex, it is better to use list comprehension.
Note
In Python, list comprehensions can also replace filter and map functions and are considered a clearer option.
With list comprehension it is also convenient to get elements from nested dictionaries:
In [13]: london_co = {
...: 'r1' : {
...: 'hostname': 'london_r1',
...: 'location': '21 New Globe Walk',
...: 'vendor': 'Cisco',
...: 'model': '4451',
...: 'IOS': '15.4',
...: 'IP': '10.255.0.1'
...: },
...: 'r2' : {
...: 'hostname': 'london_r2',
...: 'location': '21 New Globe Walk',
...: 'vendor': 'Cisco',
...: 'model': '4451',
...: 'IOS': '15.4',
...: 'IP': '10.255.0.2'
...: },
...: 'sw1' : {
...: 'hostname': 'london_sw1',
...: 'location': '21 New Globe Walk',
...: 'vendor': 'Cisco',
...: 'model': '3850',
...: 'IOS': '3.6.XE',
...: 'IP': '10.255.0.101'
...: }
...: }
In [14]: [london_co[device]['IOS'] for device in london_co]
Out[14]: ['15.4', '15.4', '3.6.XE']
In [15]: [london_co[device]['IP'] for device in london_co]
Out[15]: ['10.255.0.1', '10.255.0.2', '10.255.0.101']
In fact, syntax of list comprehension looks like:
[expression for item1 in iterable1 if condition1
for item2 in iterable2 if condition2
...
for itemN in iterableN if conditionN ]
This means you can use several for in expression.
For example, vlans list contains several nested lists with VLANs:
In [16]: vlans = [[10,21,35], [101, 115, 150], [111, 40, 50]]
It’s necessary to form only one list with VLAN numbers. The first option is to use for loop:
In [17]: result = []
In [18]: for vlan_list in vlans:
...: for vlan in vlan_list:
...: result.append(vlan)
...:
In [19]: print(result)
[10, 21, 35, 101, 115, 150, 111, 40, 50]
List comprehension:
In [20]: vlans = [[10,21,35], [101, 115, 150], [111, 40, 50]]
In [21]: result = [vlan for vlan_list in vlans for vlan in vlan_list]
In [22]: print(result)
[10, 21, 35, 101, 115, 150, 111, 40, 50]
Two sequences can be processed simultaneously using zip():
In [23]: vlans = [100, 110, 150, 200]
In [24]: names = ['mngmt', 'voice', 'video', 'dmz']
In [25]: result = [f'vlan {vl}\n name {name}' for vl, name in zip(vlans, names)]
In [26]: print('\n'.join(result))
vlan 100
name mngmt
vlan 110
name voice
vlan 150
name video
vlan 200
name dmz
Dict comprehensions#
Dict comprehensions are similar to list comprehensions but they are used to create dictionaries. For example, the expression:
In [27]: d = {}
In [28]: for num in range(1, 11):
...: d[num] = num**2
...:
In [29]: print(d)
{1: 1, 2: 4, 3: 9, 4: 16, 5: 25, 6: 36, 7: 49, 8: 64, 9: 81, 10: 100}
Can be replaced with a dict comprehension:
In [30]: d = {num: num**2 for num in range(1, 11)}
In [31]: print(d)
{1: 1, 2: 4, 3: 9, 4: 16, 5: 25, 6: 36, 7: 49, 8: 64, 9: 81, 10: 100}
Another example in which you need to change an existing dictionary and convert all keys to lowercase. First, a solution without a dict comprehension:
In [32]: r1 = {'IOS': '15.4',
...: 'IP': '10.255.0.1',
...: 'hostname': 'london_r1',
...: 'location': '21 New Globe Walk',
...: 'model': '4451',
...: 'vendor': 'Cisco'}
...:
In [33]: lower_r1 = {}
In [34]: for key, value in r1.items():
...: lower_r1[key.lower()] = value
...:
In [35]: lower_r1
Out[35]:
{'hostname': 'london_r1',
'ios': '15.4',
'ip': '10.255.0.1',
'location': '21 New Globe Walk',
'model': '4451',
'vendor': 'Cisco'}
Dict comprehension version:
In [36]: r1 = {'IOS': '15.4',
...: 'IP': '10.255.0.1',
...: 'hostname': 'london_r1',
...: 'location': '21 New Globe Walk',
...: 'model': '4451',
...: 'vendor': 'Cisco'}
...:
In [37]: lower_r1 = {key.lower(): value for key, value in r1.items()}
In [38]: lower_r1
Out[38]:
{'hostname': 'london_r1',
'ios': '15.4',
'ip': '10.255.0.1',
'location': '21 New Globe Walk',
'model': '4451',
'vendor': 'Cisco'}
Like list comprehensions, dict comprehensions can be nested. Try to convert keys in nested dictionaries in the same way:
In [39]: london_co = {
...: 'r1' : {
...: 'hostname': 'london_r1',
...: 'location': '21 New Globe Walk',
...: 'vendor': 'Cisco',
...: 'model': '4451',
...: 'IOS': '15.4',
...: 'IP': '10.255.0.1'
...: },
...: 'r2' : {
...: 'hostname': 'london_r2',
...: 'location': '21 New Globe Walk',
...: 'vendor': 'Cisco',
...: 'model': '4451',
...: 'IOS': '15.4',
...: 'IP': '10.255.0.2'
...: },
...: 'sw1' : {
...: 'hostname': 'london_sw1',
...: 'location': '21 New Globe Walk',
...: 'vendor': 'Cisco',
...: 'model': '3850',
...: 'IOS': '3.6.XE',
...: 'IP': '10.255.0.101'
...: }
...: }
In [40]: lower_london_co = {}
In [41]: for device, params in london_co.items():
...: lower_london_co[device] = {}
...: for key, value in params.items():
...: lower_london_co[device][key.lower()] = value
...:
In [42]: lower_london_co
Out[42]:
{'r1': {'hostname': 'london_r1',
'ios': '15.4',
'ip': '10.255.0.1',
'location': '21 New Globe Walk',
'model': '4451',
'vendor': 'Cisco'},
'r2': {'hostname': 'london_r2',
'ios': '15.4',
'ip': '10.255.0.2',
'location': '21 New Globe Walk',
'model': '4451',
'vendor': 'Cisco'},
'sw1': {'hostname': 'london_sw1',
'ios': '3.6.XE',
'ip': '10.255.0.101',
'location': '21 New Globe Walk',
'model': '3850',
'vendor': 'Cisco'}}
Similar conversion with dict comprehensions:
In [43]: result = {device: {key.lower(): value for key, value in params.items()}
for device, params in london_co.items()}
In [44]: result
Out[44]:
{'r1': {'hostname': 'london_r1',
'ios': '15.4',
'ip': '10.255.0.1',
'location': '21 New Globe Walk',
'model': '4451',
'vendor': 'Cisco'},
'r2': {'hostname': 'london_r2',
'ios': '15.4',
'ip': '10.255.0.2',
'location': '21 New Globe Walk',
'model': '4451',
'vendor': 'Cisco'},
'sw1': {'hostname': 'london_sw1',
'ios': '3.6.XE',
'ip': '10.255.0.101',
'location': '21 New Globe Walk',
'model': '3850',
'vendor': 'Cisco'}}
Set comprehensions#
Set comprehensions are generally similar to list comprehensions. For example, get a set with unique VLAN numbers:
In [45]: vlans = [10, '30', 30, 10, '56']
In [46]: unique_vlans = {int(vlan) for vlan in vlans}
In [47]: unique_vlans
Out[47]: {10, 30, 56}
Similar solution without using of set comprehensions:
In [48]: vlans = [10, '30', 30, 10, '56']
In [49]: unique_vlans = set()
In [50]: for vlan in vlans:
...: unique_vlans.add(int(vlan))
...:
In [51]: unique_vlans
Out[51]: {10, 30, 56}