Merging every 2 elements of a list in Python

Question

So let's say I have a list as follows:

Li = ['1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8']

I want to have a list modification to have this:

Li = ['12', '34', '56', '78']

Is it possible to merge every 2 elements of a list together?

Answer 1

>>> Li = ['1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8']
>>> [''.join(Li[i:i+2]) for i in range(0, len(Li), 2)]
['12', '34', '56', '78']

Answer 2

And if you prefer functional python:

list(map(lambda x: x[0]+x[1], zip(*[iter(Li)] * 2)))

Answer 3

You could use map on striding subsets of the list that step by 2 and are offset by 1:

list(map(str.__add__,Li[::2],Li[1::2]+[""]))

['12', '34', '56', '78']

Note: The +[""] is there to cover cases where the list has an odd number of elements