Python: perform actions on all the elements and sub-elements within a list

Question

I want to perform some actions within a huge list, which contains multiple lists, and within those multiple lists, they also have some lists, for example:

arr = [[[1, 2], 3], [2, 3, 4]]

How can I perform some actions with all the elements within these lists, for example +1 ? And the result will be :

[[[2, 3], 4], [3, 4, 5]]

I know I can use for to loop through every list, but sometimes those elements might be string or other types?

And I know I can check type() for every element inside the list do it recursively and perform some actions, but is there any simple way to solve this problem?

Too broad my ass

Have you tried something already? If so, please share your code. If you have strings, I don't think you'll be able to avoid type-checking. — jpp, Jun 14 '18 at 00:40
`isinstance` is preferable over `type`, but besides that yes, you're going to have to do some traversal. — miradulo, Jun 14 '18 at 00:43
[How to apply a function to each sublist of a list in python?](https://stackoverflow.com/a/43357135/1248974) — chickity china chinese chicken, Jun 14 '18 at 01:02

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 14 '18 at 00:51

A simple recursive routine can do that like:

Code:

def operate_on(data, operation):
    if isinstance(data, list):
        return [operate_on(x, operation) for x in data]
    else:
        return operation(data)

Test Code:

arr = [[[1, 2], 3], [2, 3, 4]]
print(operate_on(arr, lambda x: x + 1))

Results:

[[[2, 3], 4], [3, 4, 5]]

Python: perform actions on all the elements and sub-elements within a list

1 Answers1

Code:

Test Code:

Results: