Find intersection of two nested lists?

PythonListIntersection

Python Problem Overview


I know how to get an intersection of two flat lists:

b1 = [1,2,3,4,5,9,11,15]
b2 = [4,5,6,7,8]
b3 = [val for val in b1 if val in b2]

or

def intersect(a, b):
    return list(set(a) & set(b))
 
print intersect(b1, b2)

But when I have to find intersection for nested lists then my problems starts:

c1 = [1, 6, 7, 10, 13, 28, 32, 41, 58, 63]
c2 = [[13, 17, 18, 21, 32], [7, 11, 13, 14, 28], [1, 5, 6, 8, 15, 16]]

In the end I would like to receive:

c3 = [[13,32],[7,13,28],[1,6]]

Can you guys give me a hand with this?

Python Solutions


Solution 1 - Python

You don't need to define intersection. It's already a first-class part of set.

>>> b1 = [1,2,3,4,5,9,11,15]
>>> b2 = [4,5,6,7,8]
>>> set(b1).intersection(b2)
set([4, 5])

Solution 2 - Python

If you want:

c1 = [1, 6, 7, 10, 13, 28, 32, 41, 58, 63]
c2 = [[13, 17, 18, 21, 32], [7, 11, 13, 14, 28], [1, 5, 6, 8, 15, 16]]
c3 = [[13, 32], [7, 13, 28], [1,6]]

Then here is your solution for Python 2:

c3 = [filter(lambda x: x in c1, sublist) for sublist in c2]

In Python 3 filter returns an iterable instead of list, so you need to wrap filter calls with list():

c3 = [list(filter(lambda x: x in c1, sublist)) for sublist in c2]

Explanation:

The filter part takes each sublist's item and checks to see if it is in the source list c1. The list comprehension is executed for each sublist in c2.

Solution 3 - Python

For people just looking to find the intersection of two lists, the Asker provided two methods:

> b1 = [1,2,3,4,5,9,11,15] > b2 = [4,5,6,7,8] > b3 = [val for val in b1 if val in b2] > > and > > def intersect(a, b): > return list(set(a) & set(b)) > > print intersect(b1, b2)

But there is a hybrid method that is more efficient, because you only have to do one conversion between list/set, as opposed to three:

b1 = [1,2,3,4,5]
b2 = [3,4,5,6]
s2 = set(b2)
b3 = [val for val in b1 if val in s2]

This will run in O(n), whereas his original method involving list comprehension will run in O(n^2)

Solution 4 - Python

The functional approach:

input_list = [[1, 2, 3, 4, 5], [2, 3, 4, 5, 6], [3, 4, 5, 6, 7]]

result = reduce(set.intersection, map(set, input_list))

and it can be applied to the more general case of 1+ lists

Solution 5 - Python

Pure list comprehension version
>>> c1 = [1, 6, 7, 10, 13, 28, 32, 41, 58, 63]
>>> c2 = [[13, 17, 18, 21, 32], [7, 11, 13, 14, 28], [1, 5, 6, 8, 15, 16]]
>>> c1set = frozenset(c1)

Flatten variant:

>>> [n for lst in c2 for n in lst if n in c1set]
[13, 32, 7, 13, 28, 1, 6]

Nested variant:

>>> [[n for n in lst if n in c1set] for lst in c2]
[[13, 32], [7, 13, 28], [1, 6]]

Solution 6 - Python

The & operator takes the intersection of two sets.

{1, 2, 3} & {2, 3, 4}
Out[1]: {2, 3}

Solution 7 - Python

A pythonic way of taking the intersection of 2 lists is:

[x for x in list1 if x in list2]

Solution 8 - Python

You should flatten using this code ( taken from http://kogs-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~meine/python_tricks ), the code is untested, but I'm pretty sure it works:


def flatten(x):
"""flatten(sequence) -> list



Returns a single, flat list which contains all elements retrieved
from the sequence and all recursively contained sub-sequences
(iterables).

Examples:
>>> [1, 2, [3,4], (5,6)]
[1, 2, [3, 4], (5, 6)]
>>> flatten([[[1,2,3], (42,None)], [4,5], [6], 7, MyVector(8,9,10)])
[1, 2, 3, 42, None, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]"""

result = []
for el in x:
    #if isinstance(el, (list, tuple)):
    if hasattr(el, "__iter__") and not isinstance(el, basestring):
        result.extend(flatten(el))
    else:
        result.append(el)
return result


After you had flattened the list, you perform the intersection in the usual way:


c1 = [1, 6, 7, 10, 13, 28, 32, 41, 58, 63]
c2 = [[13, 17, 18, 21, 32], [7, 11, 13, 14, 28], [1, 5, 6, 8, 15, 16]]




def intersect(a, b):
return list(set(a) & set(b))




print intersect(flatten(c1), flatten(c2))


Solution 9 - Python

Since intersect was defined, a basic list comprehension is enough:

>>> c3 = [intersect(c1, i) for i in c2]
>>> c3
[[32, 13], [28, 13, 7], [1, 6]]

Improvement thanks to S. Lott's remark and TM.'s associated remark:

>>> c3 = [list(set(c1).intersection(i)) for i in c2]
>>> c3
[[32, 13], [28, 13, 7], [1, 6]]

Solution 10 - Python

Given:

> c1 = [1, 6, 7, 10, 13, 28, 32, 41, 58, 63]

> c2 = [[13, 17, 18, 21, 32], [7, 11, 13, 14, 28], [1, 5, 6, 8, 15, 16]]

I find the following code works well and maybe more concise if using set operation:

> c3 = [list(set(f)&set(c1)) for f in c2] 

It got:

> [[32, 13], [28, 13, 7], [1, 6]]

If order needed:

> c3 = [sorted(list(set(f)&set(c1))) for f in c2] 

we got:

> [[13, 32], [7, 13, 28], [1, 6]]

By the way, for a more python style, this one is fine too:

> c3 = [ [i for i in set(f) if i in c1] for f in c2]

Solution 11 - Python

Do you consider [1,2] to intersect with [1, [2]]? That is, is it only the numbers you care about, or the list structure as well?

If only the numbers, investigate how to "flatten" the lists, then use the set() method.

Solution 12 - Python

I don't know if I am late in answering your question. After reading your question I came up with a function intersect() that can work on both list and nested list. I used recursion to define this function, it is very intuitive. Hope it is what you are looking for:

def intersect(a, b):
    result=[]
    for i in b:
        if isinstance(i,list):
            result.append(intersect(a,i))
        else:
            if i in a:
                 result.append(i)
    return result

Example:

>>> c1 = [1, 6, 7, 10, 13, 28, 32, 41, 58, 63]
>>> c2 = [[13, 17, 18, 21, 32], [7, 11, 13, 14, 28], [1, 5, 6, 8, 15, 16]]
>>> print intersect(c1,c2)
[[13, 32], [7, 13, 28], [1, 6]]

>>> b1 = [1,2,3,4,5,9,11,15]
>>> b2 = [4,5,6,7,8]
>>> print intersect(b1,b2)
[4, 5]

Solution 13 - Python

I was also looking for a way to do it, and eventually it ended up like this:

def compareLists(a,b):
    removed = [x for x in a if x not in b]
    added = [x for x in b if x not in a]
    overlap = [x for x in a if x in b]
    return [removed,added,overlap]

Solution 14 - Python

To define intersection that correctly takes into account the cardinality of the elements use Counter:

from collections import Counter

>>> c1 = [1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4]
>>> c2 = [1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5]
>>> list((Counter(c1) & Counter(c2)).elements())
[1, 2, 4, 4, 4]

Solution 15 - Python

c1 = [1, 6, 7, 10, 13, 28, 32, 41, 58, 63]

c2 = [[13, 17, 18, 21, 32], [7, 11, 13, 14, 28], [1, 5, 6, 8, 15, 16]]

c3 = [list(set(c2[i]).intersection(set(c1))) for i in xrange(len(c2))]

c3
->[[32, 13], [28, 13, 7], [1, 6]]

Solution 16 - Python

We can use set methods for this:

c1 = [1, 6, 7, 10, 13, 28, 32, 41, 58, 63]
c2 = [[13, 17, 18, 21, 32], [7, 11, 13, 14, 28], [1, 5, 6, 8, 15, 16]]

   result = [] 
   for li in c2:
       res = set(li) & set(c1)
       result.append(list(res))

   print result

Solution 17 - Python

# Problem:  Given c1 and c2:
c1 = [1, 6, 7, 10, 13, 28, 32, 41, 58, 63]
c2 = [[13, 17, 18, 21, 32], [7, 11, 13, 14, 28], [1, 5, 6, 8, 15, 16]]
# how do you get c3 to be [[13, 32], [7, 13, 28], [1, 6]] ?

Here's one way to set c3 that doesn't involve sets:

c3 = []
for sublist in c2:
    c3.append([val for val in c1 if val in sublist])

But if you prefer to use just one line, you can do this:

c3 = [[val for val in c1 if val in sublist]  for sublist in c2]

It's a list comprehension inside a list comprehension, which is a little unusual, but I think you shouldn't have too much trouble following it.

Solution 18 - Python

c1 = [1, 6, 7, 10, 13, 28, 32, 41, 58, 63]
c2 = [[13, 17, 18, 21, 32], [7, 11, 13, 14, 28], [1, 5, 6, 8, 15, 16]]
c3 = [list(set(i) & set(c1)) for i in c2]
c3
[[32, 13], [28, 13, 7], [1, 6]]

For me this is very elegant and quick way to to it :)

Solution 19 - Python

flat list can be made through reduce easily.

All you need to use initializer - third argument in the reduce function.

reduce(
   lambda result, _list: result.append(
       list(set(_list)&set(c1)) 
     ) or result, 
   c2, 
   [])

Above code works for both python2 and python3, but you need to import reduce module as from functools import reduce. Refer below link for details.

Solution 20 - Python

Simple way to find difference and intersection between iterables

Use this method if repetition matters

from collections import Counter

def intersection(a, b):
    """
    Find the intersection of two iterables
    
    >>> intersection((1,2,3), (2,3,4))
    (2, 3)
    
    >>> intersection((1,2,3,3), (2,3,3,4))
    (2, 3, 3)
    
    >>> intersection((1,2,3,3), (2,3,4,4))
    (2, 3)
    
    >>> intersection((1,2,3,3), (2,3,4,4))
    (2, 3)
    """
    return tuple(n for n, count in (Counter(a) & Counter(b)).items() for _ in range(count))

def difference(a, b):
    """
    Find the symmetric difference of two iterables
    
    >>> difference((1,2,3), (2,3,4))
    (1, 4)
    
    >>> difference((1,2,3,3), (2,3,4))
    (1, 3, 4)
    
    >>> difference((1,2,3,3), (2,3,4,4))
    (1, 3, 4, 4)
    """
    diff = lambda x, y: tuple(n for n, count in (Counter(x) - Counter(y)).items() for _ in range(count))
    return diff(a, b) + diff(b, a)

Solution 21 - Python

from random import *

a = sample(range(0, 1000), 100)
b = sample(range(0, 1000), 100)
print(a)
print(b)
print(set(a).intersection(set(b)))

Attributions

All content for this solution is sourced from the original question on Stackoverflow.

The content on this page is licensed under the Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license.

Content TypeOriginal AuthorOriginal Content on Stackoverflow
Questionelfuego1View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - PythonS.LottView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - PythonBrian R. BondyView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - PythonZack BurtView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - PythonpufferfishView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - PythonjfsView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - PythonaflaislerView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - PythonFlying_ostrichView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 8 - PythonGeoView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 9 - PythonEmmanuelView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 10 - PythonStevenView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 11 - PythonunwindView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 12 - PythonMrsky BoatinView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 13 - PythonRemco van ZuijlenView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 14 - PythonJames HirschornView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 15 - Pythonuser3105897View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 16 - PythonBirendra KumarView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 17 - PythonJ-LView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 18 - PythonMichalView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 19 - PythonRaja SakthiyanView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 20 - PythonConnorView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 21 - PythonLouwyn AnView Answer on Stackoverflow