Create all possible combinations of a list in Python

Question

does anybody know how can I find out all the possible combinations of a given list using Python 3?

My lists look like this:

usersArray = ["John", "Mike", "Robert", "Tom"]
foodsArray = ["hamburger", "cake", "cheese"]

I would like to have something like this:

Johnhamburger
Mikehamburger
Roberthamburger
Tomhamburger

Johncake
Mikecake
Robertcake
Tomcake

Johncheese
Mikecheese
Robertcheese
Tomcheese

#and then the opposite

hamburgerJohn
hamburgerMike
hamburgerRobert
hamburgerTom

cakeJohn
...
...
...

cheeseJohn
...
...
...

Can I use itertools? Thank you!

Show us what you have tried yourself so far. – Irmen de Jong Nov 26 '17 at 17:35 — Irmen de Jong, Nov 26 '17 at 17:35
Excuse me? StackOverflow is not a code writing service. – Irmen de Jong Nov 26 '17 at 18:28 — Irmen de Jong, Nov 26 '17 at 18:28

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 26 '17 at 17:34

2

That's just two uses of itertools product:

for food, user in itertools.product(foodsArray, usersArray):
    print(user+food)

for food, user in itertools.product(foodsArray, usersArray):
    print(food+user)

answered Nov 26 '17 at 17:34

Sebastian Mendez

2,859
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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 26 '17 at 17:35

A pure Python solution:

You can do this with nested for-loops in a list-comprehension and string concatenation:

[u + f for u in usersArray for f in foodsArray]

which gives:

['Johnhamburger', 'Johncake', 'Johncheese', 'Mikehamburger', 'Mikecake', 'Mikecheese', 'Roberthamburger', 'Robertcake', 'Robertcheese', 'Tomhamburger', 'Tomcake', 'Tomcheese']

[f + u for u in usersArray for f in foodsArray]

which gives:

['hamburgerJohn', 'cakeJohn', 'cheeseJohn', 'hamburgerMike', 'cakeMike', 'cheeseMike', 'hamburgerRobert', 'cakeRobert', 'cheeseRobert', 'hamburgerTom', 'cakeTom', 'cheeseTom']

Create all possible combinations of a list in Python

2 Answers2