All items from a tuple in Python

Question

I have a tuple, which consists of some tuple of integers and some integers, like ((1, 2), 3, (4, 5), 6).Now I need all integers from it. I wrote:

def get_all_items(iterable):
    t = []

    for each in iterable:
        if type(each) == int:
            t.append(each)
        else:
            t.extend(each)

    return tuple(t)

It works for me. Is there any better way to do this?

Do you know for sure that there is only one level of hierarchy, i.e., you don't have a tuple of tuples of tuples? — Kyle Strand, Oct 15 '13 at 03:23

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 15 '13 at 04:05

3

Don't forget the cheats way

>>> from ast import literal_eval
>>> t = ((1, 2), 3, (4, 5), 6)
>>> literal_eval(repr(t).translate(None, '()'))
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

answered Oct 15 '13 at 04:05

John La Rooy

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It's not often that code makes me laugh... I think what got me is "the cheats way" – SethMMorton Oct 15 '13 at 04:55

kojiro · Answer 2 · 2013-10-15T03:21:05.963

1

from itertools import chain

def flatten(items):
  def renest():
    for item in items:
      try:
        yield iter(item)
      except TypeError:
        yield iter([item])
  return list(chain.from_iterable(renest()))

edited Oct 15 '13 at 03:21

answered Oct 15 '13 at 03:12

kojiro

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@DSM yeah, I forgot `itertools` wasn't magic. – kojiro Oct 15 '13 at 03:21
Easy to forget, because it so often is. :^) – DSM Oct 15 '13 at 03:22

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 15 '13 at 03:19

I think your way is fine. Here's another way, using recursion, which will work for an arbitrarily-deeply-nested iterable structure:

def get_all_items(iterable):
    try:
        result = []
        for element in iterable:
            result += detuple(element)
        return result
    except TypeError:
        return [iterable]

Also, it may be useful to know that the operation you're describing is known as "flattening" a data structure.

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 15 '13 at 03:40

1

import itertools
itertools.chain.from_iterable(
    item if hasattr(item, '__iter__') else (item,)
        for item in iterable 
)

answered Oct 15 '13 at 03:40

Leonardo.Z

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score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 15 '13 at 03:49

You can simplify your code like this

def get_all_items(iterable):
    t = []
    for each in iterable:
        t.extend(list(each) if isinstance(each, tuple) else [each])
    return tuple(t)

print get_all_items(((1, 2), 3, (4, 5), 6))

Output

(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

All items from a tuple in Python

5 Answers5