How to Zip two lists of lists in Python?

Last Updated : 11 Dec, 2020

The normal zip function allows us the functionality to aggregate the values in a container. But sometimes, we have a requirement in which we require to have multiple lists and containing lists as index elements and we need to merge/zip them together. This is quite uncommon problem, but solution to it can still be handy. Let’s discuss certain ways in which solution can be devised.

Method #1 : Using map() + __add__
This problem can be solved using the map function with the addition operation. The map function performs the similar kind of function as the zip function and in this this case can help to reach to a solution.

# Python3 code to demonstrate 
# zipping lists of lists 
# using map() + __add__
  
# initializing lists
test_list1 = [[1, 3], [4, 5], [5, 6]]
test_list2 = [[7, 9], [3, 2], [3, 10]]
  
# printing original lists
print ("The original list 1 is : " + str(test_list1))
print ("The original list 2 is : " + str(test_list2))
  
# using map() + __add__
# zipping lists of lists 
res = list(map(list.__add__, test_list1, test_list2))
      
# printing result 
print ("The modified zipped list is : " +  str(res))

Output :

The original list 1 is : [[1, 3], [4, 5], [5, 6]]
The original list 2 is : [[7, 9], [3, 2], [3, 10]]
The modified zipped list is : [[1, 3, 7, 9], [4, 5, 3, 2], [5, 6, 3, 10]]

Method #2 : Using itertools.chain() + zip()
This combination of these two functions can be used to perform this particular task. The chain function can be used to perform the interlist aggregation, and the intralist aggregation is done by zip function.

# Python3 code to demonstrate 
# zipping lists of lists 
# using map() + __add__
import itertools
  
# initializing lists
test_list1 = [[1, 3], [4, 5], [5, 6]]
test_list2 = [[7, 9], [3, 2], [3, 10]]
  
# printing original lists
print ("The original list 1 is : " + str(test_list1))
print ("The original list 2 is : " + str(test_list2))
  
# using map() + __add__
# zipping lists of lists 
res = [list(itertools.chain(*i)) 
       for i in zip(test_list1, test_list2)]
      
# printing result 
print ("The modified zipped list is : " +  str(res))

Output :

The original list 1 is : [[1, 3], [4, 5], [5, 6]]
The original list 2 is : [[7, 9], [3, 2], [3, 10]]
The modified zipped list is : [[1, 3, 7, 9], [4, 5, 3, 2], [5, 6, 3, 10]]

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