Transforming List into List of Lists

Q&A DQ Courses
#1

Hello :slight_smile:,

I am having troubles writing this code and getting the output to be a list of lists, instead its always returning a list:

result_list = []

for row in ask_posts:
    created_at = row[6]
    num_comments = row[4]
    result_list.append(created_at)
    result_list.append(num_comments)

The result_list has to be a list of lists instead of only a list! How can it be done?

This is a part of a task (#5) from the Guided Project: Exploring Hacker News Posts

Thanks a lot!

Kind Regards

#2

@a.xitas You are getting a list instead of a list of lists because that’s what your code is doing. You see, every row is a list. So when you go through ask_posts and get row you get that list. But then you get the items created_at and num_comments from the list and you append them separately to result_list. So, every time you go through the loop, 2 different items get added to result_list.

Now, if I am not mistaken, what you want is to add those two items to result_list but add them as a list. Am I right? If yes, then what we have to do is create a new list containing them both and append that list to result_list. What you are missing right now is the part where you create that new list.

I do not want to rob you of the fun of doing this yourself now that you know what’s wrong. So, I suggest you give it a try and if you are having trouble still you let us know. How does that sound? :grinning:

1 Like
#3

#1 method

result_list = [] 

for row in ask_posts:
    temp_list =[row[6], row[4]]
    result_list.append(temp_list)

#2 method

a more python way

result_list = [[row[6], row[4]] for row in ask_posts]
4 Likes
#4

Thank you very much, taojian2009, for your kindful help :slight_smile:

I was not getting it right! Having slightly different results, but not the one I was looking for!

Went with this solution:

result_list = [[row[6], row[4]] for row in ask_posts]

This implies the use of list comprehension right? I`ve seen it while searching for a solution, but didn’t know how to use it for 2elements/2lists! :confused:

Thank you once again :wink:

Abraço

2 Likes
#5

Yep, that uses List Comprehension. And it’s certainly very elegant, although list comprehension is covered in a much later course!

1 Like
#6

That was exactly my problem, Yemi :slight_smile:

I thought about that solution, but I was thinking in a slightly different way! I was creating 2 different lists, one for each variable and then trying to “add” that 2 different lists into a final one, a list of lists! But I was encountering various problems, 1st trying to “add” 2 lists together using the append method. I found it was not possible. Than I thought about the extend method, but once again this did not result into a list of lists with [[el1, el2], [el1, el2]…]. Also, the pure and simple add(+) a list to a list was not an option. So I got stuck and abandoned this solution. Then I read your comment. And I said, hhmmm, lets give it a try, but once again, I could not get the result I wanted:

import datetime as dt

result_list = []
data_hora_n_comentarios = []

for row in ask_posts:
    created_at = row[6]
    num_comments = row[4]
    data_hora_n_comentarios.append(created_at)
    data_hora_n_comentarios.append(num_comments)

result_list.append(data_hora_n_comentarios)
    
print(result_list)

So I was getting frustrated until I saw the other comment :slight_smile:
I knew one way was trough list comprehension but I did not knew how to use it with 2elements/2lists. Now I know :smiley:

Thank you very much!!

#7

Ok :slight_smile:

Hope to get there soon :wink:

#8

Ah, so what’s happening here is you were simply making a giant list of lists.

After your for loop, your result_list had variables in the following form:
[a, b, c, d, e, f]

You were getting the above because you were simply appending everything into one giant list!

What you needed to make was something closer to the following:
[[a, b], [c, d], [e, f]]

You should be able to do this by changing your code like so:

result_list = []

for row in ask_posts:
    created_at = row[6]
    num_comments = row[4]
    result_list.append([created_at, num_comments])
    
print(result_list)

Above, you’re appending the two objects together as a list directly into result_list to get the correct kind of list of lists.

The list comprehension method you see above worked because it also took into account that the row[6] and row[4] variables had to be together in their own individual lists.

#9

Yay!!! :dancing_men: You are very welcome!! I am happy that all together we were able to help you this sort this out. :grinning:

1 Like
#10

Thanks a lot :slight_smile:

1 Like
#11

For some reason I was getting errors in subsequent steps, until I converted the num_comments to an integer type:

num_comments = int(row[4])