Unzipping and the * operator
The python docs gives this code as the reverse operation of zip:
>>> x2, y2 = zip(*zipped)
In particular "zip() in conjunction with the * operator can be used to unzip a list". Can someone explain to me how the * operator works in this case? As far as I understand, * is a binary operator and can be used for multiplication or shallow copy...neither of which seems to be the case here.
When used like this, the * (asterisk, also know in some circles as the "splat" operator) is a signal to unpack arguments from a list. See http://docs.python.org/tutorial/controlflow.html#unpacking-argument-lists for a more complete definition with examples.
Although hammar's answer explains how the reversing works in the case of the zip() function, it may be useful to look at argument unpacking in a more general sense. Let's say we have a simple function which takes some arguments:
>>> def do_something(arg1, arg2, arg3):
... print 'arg1: %s' % arg1
... print 'arg2: %s' % arg2
... print 'arg3: %s' % arg3
...
>>> do_something(1, 2, 3)
arg1: 1
arg2: 2
arg3: 3
Instead of directly specifying the arguments, we can create a list (or tuple for that matter) to hold them, and then tell Python to unpack that list and use its contents as the arguments to the function:
>>> arguments = [42, 'insert value here', 3.14]
>>> do_something(*arguments)
arg1: 42
arg2: insert value here
arg3: 3.14
This behaves as normal if you don't have enough arguments (or too many):
>>> arguments = [42, 'insert value here']
>>> do_something(*arguments)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TypeError Traceback (most recent call last)
/home/blair/<ipython console> in <module>()
TypeError: do_something() takes exactly 3 arguments (2 given)
You can use the same construct when defining a function to accept any number of positional arguments. They are given to your function as a tuple:
>>> def show_args(*args):
... for index, value in enumerate(args):
... print 'Argument %d: %s' % (index, value)
...
>>> show_args(1, 2, 3)
Argument 0: 1
Argument 1: 2
Argument 2: 3
And of course you can combine the two techniques:
>>> show_args(*arguments)
Argument 0: 42
Argument 1: insert value here
You can do a similar thing with keyword arguments, using a double asterix ( ** ) and a dictionary:
>>> def show_kwargs(**kwargs):
... for arg, value in kwargs.items():
... print '%s = %s' % (arg, value)
...
>>> show_kwargs(age=24, name='Blair')
age = 24
name = Blair
And, of course, you can pass keyword arguments through a dictionary:
>>> values = {'name': 'John', 'age': 17}
>>> show_kwargs(**values)
age = 17
name = John
It is perfectly acceptable to mix the two, and you can always have required arguments and optional extra arguments to a function:
>>> def mixed(required_arg, *args, **kwargs):
... print 'Required: %s' % required_arg
... if args:
... print 'Extra positional arguments: %s' % str(args)
... if kwargs:
... print 'Extra keyword arguments: %s' % kwargs
...
>>> mixed(1)
Required: 1
>>> mixed(1, 2, 3)
Required: 1
Extra positional arguments: (2, 3)
>>> mixed(1, 2, 3, test=True)
Required: 1
Extra positional arguments: (2, 3)
Extra keyword arguments: {'test': True}
>>> args = (2, 3, 4)
>>> kwargs = {'test': True, 'func': min}
>>> mixed(*args, **kwargs)
Required: 2
Extra positional arguments: (3, 4)
Extra keyword arguments: {'test': True, 'func': <built-in function min>}
If you are taking optional keyword arguments and you want to have default values, remember you are dealing with a dictionary and hence you can use its get() method with a default value to use if the key does not exist:
>>> def take_keywords(**kwargs):
... print 'Test mode: %s' % kwargs.get('test', False)
... print 'Combining function: %s' % kwargs.get('func', all)
...
>>> take_keywords()
Test mode: False
Combining function: <built-in function all>
>>> take_keywords(func=any)
Test mode: False
Combining function: <built-in function any>
zip(*zipped) means "feed each element of zipped as an argument to zip ". zip is similar to transposing a matrix in that doing it again will leave you back where you started.
>>> a = [(1, 2, 3), (4, 5, 6)]
>>> b = zip(*a)
>>> b
[(1, 4), (2, 5), (3, 6)]
>>> zip(*b)
[(1, 2, 3), (4, 5, 6)]
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