python: creating list of each element of list

Question

I wish to create list of each element of a list. what I want is: if cities = ["detroit" , "chicago" , "portland"]; then create 3 lists:

detroit = [""];
chicago = [""];
portland = [""];

You can doing it using `eval`, but most likely you don't want that. I think what you do want is to create a dictionary of the form `{'detroit': [], 'chicago': [], 'portland': []}` — George Karpenkov, Oct 15 '14 at 10:49

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 15 '14 at 10:49

0

That is not a good idea, but that's your decision. This will do what you want.

cities = ["detroit" , "chicago" , "portland"]
if cities == ["detroit" , "chicago" , "portland"]:
    for city in cities:
        exec("{} = [\"\"]".format(city))

answered Oct 15 '14 at 10:49

simonzack

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If you could explain the last two lines of code – Rahul Sonwalkar Oct 15 '14 at 10:55
Line 3 iterates over all cities, line 4 runs the statement `city = [""]` using `exec()`. – simonzack Oct 15 '14 at 11:01
What if I need to insert a check that, create list if there doesn't exist one. `if cities == ["detroit" , "chicago" , "portland"]: for city in cities: if len(city) == 0: exec("{} = [\"\"]".format(city)) ` – Rahul Sonwalkar Oct 15 '14 at 11:30
@RahulSonwalkar Maybe you could ask a different question? – simonzack Oct 15 '14 at 11:30
` if cities == ["detroit" , "chicago" , "portland"]: for city in cities: if len(city) == 0: exec("{} = [\"\"]".format(city)) ` doesnt work – Rahul Sonwalkar Oct 15 '14 at 11:32

python: creating list of each element of list

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