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How Can itertools.product Generate the Cartesian Product of Multiple Lists in Python?

Susan Sarandon
Susan SarandonOriginal
2025-01-04 12:23:38330browse

How Can itertools.product Generate the Cartesian Product of Multiple Lists in Python?

Cartesian Product of Multiple Lists with itertools.product

To obtain the Cartesian product of a group of lists, where every possible combination of values is generated, utilize the built-in itertools.product function. This feature has been included in Python since version 2.6.

Implementation:

import itertools

somelists = [
   [1, 2, 3],
   ['a', 'b'],
   [4, 5]
]

for element in itertools.product(*somelists):
    print(element)

Alternatively, you can provide separate arguments to the function like this:

for element in itertools.product([1, 2, 3], ['a', 'b'], [4, 5]):
    print(element)

Either approach will generate the same output:

(1, 'a', 4)
(1, 'a', 5)
(1, 'b', 4)
(1, 'b', 5)
(2, 'a', 4)
(2, 'a', 5)
...

Note:

  • This technique is commonly employed to avoid deeply nested loops.
  • If you need the Cartesian product of the same list multiplied by itself, consider using itertools.product with arguments unpacked with *.
  • The use of * to unpack arguments in this context is not different from its typical usage in function calls.

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