why cant we simply print "print(zip(a,b))"

Question

Why can't we print "print(zip(a,b))" or simply "print(c)"?

a=[ "ab", "cd", "ef"]
b=["gh","ij","kl"]
c=zip(a,b)

if I try

"for i,j in c:
    print(i,j)"

Output:

ab gh

cd ij

ef kl

But unable to print "print(c)", its giving like this "zip object at 0x025088C8 " WHY?

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 20 '18 at 07:12

First, your solution won't work because you are considering str only. What would happen in the following case ?

zip([1, 10, 100], ["y", "a", "s"])

You can imagine another representation such as:

list(zip([1, 10, 100], ["y", "a", "s"]))
>>> [(1, 'y'), (10, 'a'), (100, 's')]

But you can read here in the zip function documentation that this function returns an iterator and this behaviour (in python3) is preferable for multiple reasons such as memory.

why cant we simply print "print(zip(a,b))"

1 Answers1