pythonlistadditiondimensional

Python two dimensional list add value to element


I want to add a value to an element of a two dimensional list. Instead the value is added to all the elements of the column. Could anyone help?

ROWS=3
COLUMNS=5  
a=[[0] * (ROWS)] * (COLUMNS)    
for i in range(ROWS):
    print (a[i])    
print("")
x=5
a[2][1]=a[2][1]+x

for i in range(ROWS):
    print (a[i])

Solution

  • Create you list like this:

    In [6]: a = [[0 for _ in range(rows)] for _ in range(cols)]
    
    In [7]: a[2][1] = a[2][1] + 5
    
    In [8]: a
    Out[8]: [[0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0], [0, 5, 0], [0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0]]
    

    Because the way you are currently doing it, it actually just repeats the same list object, so changing one actually changes each of them.

    In [11]: a = [[0] * (rows)] * (cols) 
    
    In [12]: [id(x) for x in a]
    Out[12]: [172862444, 172862444, 172862444, 172862444, 172862444] #same id(), i.e same object