python - Checking if any elements in one list are in another

33
votes

I'm trying to compare two lists and simply print a message if any value from the first list is in the second list.

def listCompare():
  list1 = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
  list2 = [5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
  if list1 in list2:
    print("Number was found")
  else:
    print("Number not in list")

In this example, I want the if to evaluate to True because 5 is in both lists. This doesn't work, and I'm not sure of the simplest way to compare the two lists.

6
pythonlist
I have taken two actions on this question: I modified the question to clarify what is the evident original point of the question: determine if any value in one list is in another list. I believe this is the original intent given the the top answers on the question address that and @h1h1 selected an answer that addresses that. h1h1 hasn't been around for years, so I could not ask him or her to clarify. The second action taken was to revert the accepted answer to its state before it was partway modified to address "determine if all elements in one list are in a second list". - David Alber

6 Answers

68
votes

You could solve this many ways. One that is pretty simple to understand is to just use a loop.

def comp(list1, list2):
    for val in list1:
        if val in list2:
            return True
    return False

A more compact way you can do it is to use map and reduce:

reduce(lambda v1,v2: v1 or v2, map(lambda v: v in list2, list1))

Even better, the reduce can be replaced with any:

any(map(lambda v: v in list2, list1))

You could also use sets:

len(set(list1).intersection(list2)) > 0
14
votes

There are different ways. If you just want to check if one list contains any element from the other list, you can do this.. 

not set(list1).isdisjoint(list2)

I believe using isdisjoint is better than intersection for Python 2.6 and above.

9
votes

There is a built in function to compare lists:

Following is the syntax for cmp() method −

cmp(list1, list2)

#!/usr/bin/python

list1, list2 = [123, 'xyz'], [123, 'xyz']

print cmp(list1,list2)

When we run above program, it produces following result −

0

If the result is a tie, meaning that 0 is returned

8
votes

Your original approach can work with a list comprehension:

def listCompare():
  list1 = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
  list2 = [5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
  if [item for item in list1 if item in list2]:
    print("Number was found")
  else:
    print("Number not in list")
6
votes

You could change the lists to sets and then compare both sets using the & function. eg:

list1 = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
list2 = [5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

if set(list1) & set(list2):
    print "Number was found"
else:
    print "Number not in list"

The "&" operator gives the intersection point between the two sets. If there is an intersection, a set with the intersecting points will be returned. If there is no intersecting points then an empty set will be returned.

When you evaluate an empty set/list/dict/tuple with the "if" operator in Python the boolean False is returned.

1
votes

I wrote the following code in one of my projects. It basically compares each individual element of the list. Feel free to use it, if it works for your requirement.

def reachedGoal(a,b):
    if(len(a)!=len(b)):
        raise ValueError("Wrong lists provided")

    for val1 in range(0,len(a)):
        temp1=a[val1]
        temp2=b[val1]
        for val2 in range(0,len(b)):
            if(temp1[val2]!=temp2[val2]):
                return False
    return True