Python | Check if all elements in a list are identical

Last Updated : 18 Jan, 2019

Given a list, write a Python program to check if all the elements in that list are identical.

Examples:

Input : ['a', 'b', 'c']
Output : False

Input : [1, 1, 1, 1]
Output : True

Approach #1 : Using loop
Start a for loop and check if first element is identical to all other elements in the list. This approach takes O(n) time complexity.

# Python3 program to check if 
# all elements in a list are identical
def check(list):
    return all(i == list[0] for i in list)
      
# Driver code
print(check(['a', 'b', 'c']))
print(check([1, 1, 1]))

Output:

False
True

Approach #2 : Using Set
Converting given list into set removes all duplicate elements, If the resultant set size is less than or equal to 1 then the list contains all identical elements.

# Python3 program to check if 
# all elements in a list are identical
def check(list):
   return len(set(list)) <= 1
     
# Driver code
print(check(['a', 'b', 'c']))
print(check([1, 1, 1]))

Output:

False
True

Approach #3 : Using count()
By counting the number of times the first element occurs in the list, we can check if the count is equal to the size of list or not. In simple words, check if the first element is repeated throughout the list or not.

# Python3 program to check if 
# all elements in a list are identical
def check(list):
   return list.count(list[0]) == len(list)
     
# Driver code
print(check(['a', 'b', 'c']))
print(check([1, 1, 1]))

Output:

False
True

Approach #4 : Alternative method
Another method is to take the first element and multiply it with the length of given list to form a new list, So that the new list contains identical elements to first elements of given list size, and then compare it with the given list.

# Python3 program to check if 
# all elements in a list are identical
def check(x):
    return x and [x[0]]*len(x) == x
     
# Driver code
print(check(['a', 'b', 'c']))
print(check([1, 1, 1]))

Output:

False
True

Approach #5 : Using extended slices
Python slice notation is used to retrieve a subset of values. Thus, we compare the start to end of the list to end to start of the list.

# Python3 program to check if 
# all elements in a list are identical
def check(list):
   return list[1:] == list[:-1]
     
# Driver code
print(check(['a', 'b', 'c']))
print(check([1, 1, 1]))

Output:

False
True

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