pythonarrayslist

convert a list which has single elements and lists into a flat list

How would you convert a list like this :

["foo",["banana","apple"], "banana", ["peaches","grapes"]]

into

["foo","banana","apple", "banana", "peaches",'grapes"]

I tried:

flat_list = [item for sublist in regular_list for item in sublist]
Solution

  • One approach using a nested list comprehension could be to check if each element is a list, and convert it to a list type otherwise:

    regular_list = ["foo",["banana","apple"], "banana", ["peaches","grapes"]]


flat_list = [item for sublist in regular_list
             for item in (sublist if isinstance(sublist, list) else [sublist])]

print(flat_list)

    Result:

    ['foo', 'banana', 'apple', 'banana', 'peaches', 'grapes']