I have to search through a list and replace all occurrences of one element with another. So far my attempts in code are getting me nowhere, what is the best way to do this?
For example, suppose my list has the following integers
>>> a = [1,2,3,4,5,1,2,3,4,5,1]
and I need to replace all occurrences of the number 1 with the value 10 so the output I need is
>>> a = [10, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10]
Thus my goal is to replace all instances of the number 1 with the number 10.
Try using a list comprehension and the ternary operator.
>>> a=[1,2,3,1,3,2,1,1]
>>> [4 if x==1 else x for x in a]
[4, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 4, 4]
List comprehension works well, and looping through with enumerate can save you some memory (b/c the operation's essentially being done in place).
There's also functional programming. See usage of map:
>>> a = [1,2,3,2,3,4,3,5,6,6,5,4,5,4,3,4,3,2,1]
>>> map(lambda x: x if x != 4 else 'sss', a)
[1, 2, 3, 2, 3, 'sss', 3, 5, 6, 6, 5, 'sss', 5, 'sss', 3, 'sss', 3, 2, 1]
a = [1,2,3,4,5,1,2,3,4,5,1,12]
for i in range (len(a)):
if a[i]==2:
a[i]=123
You can use a for and or while loop; however if u know the builtin Enumerate function, then it is recommended to use Enumerate.1
On long lists and rare occurrences its about 3x faster using list.index() - compared to single step iteration methods presented in the other answers.
def list_replace(lst, old=1, new=10):
"""replace list elements (inplace)"""
i = -1
try:
while 1:
i = lst.index(old, i + 1)
lst[i] = new
except ValueError:
pass
The following is a very straightforward method in Python 3.x
a = [1,2,3,4,5,1,2,3,4,5,1] #Replacing every 1 with 10
for i in range(len(a)):
if a[i] == 1:
a[i] = 10
print(a)
This method works. Comments are welcome. Hope it helps :)
Also try understanding how outis's and damzam's solutions work. List compressions and lambda function are useful tools.
My usecase was replacing None with some default value.
I've timed approaches to this problem that were presented here, including the one by @kxr - using str.count.
Test code in ipython with Python 3.8.1:
def rep1(lst, replacer = 0):
''' List comprehension, new list '''
return [item if item is not None else replacer for item in lst]
def rep2(lst, replacer = 0):
''' List comprehension, in-place '''
lst[:] = [item if item is not None else replacer for item in lst]
return lst
def rep3(lst, replacer = 0):
''' enumerate() with comparison - in-place '''
for idx, item in enumerate(lst):
if item is None:
lst[idx] = replacer
return lst
def rep4(lst, replacer = 0):
''' Using str.index + Exception, in-place '''
idx = -1
# none_amount = lst.count(None)
while True:
try:
idx = lst.index(None, idx+1)
except ValueError:
break
else:
lst[idx] = replacer
return lst
def rep5(lst, replacer = 0):
''' Using str.index + str.count, in-place '''
idx = -1
for _ in range(lst.count(None)):
idx = lst.index(None, idx+1)
lst[idx] = replacer
return lst
def rep6(lst, replacer = 0):
''' Using map, return map iterator '''
return map(lambda item: item if item is not None else replacer, lst)
def rep7(lst, replacer = 0):
''' Using map, return new list '''
return list(map(lambda item: item if item is not None else replacer, lst))
lst = [5]*10**6
# lst = [None]*10**6
%timeit rep1(lst)
%timeit rep2(lst)
%timeit rep3(lst)
%timeit rep4(lst)
%timeit rep5(lst)
%timeit rep6(lst)
%timeit rep7(lst)
I get:
26.3 ms ± 163 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 10 loops each)
29.3 ms ± 206 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 10 loops each)
33.8 ms ± 191 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 10 loops each)
11.9 ms ± 37.8 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
11.9 ms ± 60.2 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 100 loops each)
260 ns ± 1.84 ns per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 1000000 loops each)
56.5 ms ± 204 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 10 loops each)
Using the internal str.index is in fact faster than any manual comparison.
I didn't know if the exception in test 4 would be more laborious than using str.count, the difference seems negligible.
Note that map() (test 6) returns an iterator and not an actual list, thus test 7.
The answers for this old but relevant question are wildly variable in speed.
The fastest of the solution posted by kxr.
However, this is even faster and otherwise not here:
def f1(arr, find, replace):
# fast and readable
base=0
for cnt in range(arr.count(find)):
offset=arr.index(find, base)
arr[offset]=replace
base=offset+1
Here is timing for the various solutions. The faster ones are 3X faster than accepted answer and 5X faster than the slowest answer here.
To be fair, all methods needed to do inlace replacement of the array sent to the function.
Please see timing code below:
def f1(arr, find, replace):
# fast and readable
base=0
for cnt in range(arr.count(find)):
offset=arr.index(find, base)
arr[offset]=replace
base=offset+1
def f2(arr,find,replace):
# accepted answer
for i,e in enumerate(arr):
if e==find:
arr[i]=replace
def f3(arr,find,replace):
# in place list comprehension
arr[:]=[replace if e==find else e for e in arr]
def f4(arr,find,replace):
# in place map and lambda -- SLOW
arr[:]=list(map(lambda x: x if x != find else replace, arr))
def f5(arr,find,replace):
# find index with comprehension
for i in [i for i, e in enumerate(arr) if e==find]:
arr[i]=replace
def f6(arr,find,replace):
# FASTEST but a little les clear
try:
while True:
arr[arr.index(find)]=replace
except ValueError:
pass
def f7(lst, old, new):
"""replace list elements (inplace)"""
i = -1
try:
while 1:
i = lst.index(old, i + 1)
lst[i] = new
except ValueError:
pass
import time
def cmpthese(funcs, args=(), cnt=1000, rate=True, micro=True):
"""Generate a Perl style function benchmark"""
def pprint_table(table):
"""Perl style table output"""
def format_field(field, fmt='{:,.0f}'):
if type(field) is str: return field
if type(field) is tuple: return field[1].format(field[0])
return fmt.format(field)
def get_max_col_w(table, index):
return max([len(format_field(row[index])) for row in table])
col_paddings=[get_max_col_w(table, i) for i in range(len(table[0]))]
for i,row in enumerate(table):
# left col
row_tab=[row[0].ljust(col_paddings[0])]
# rest of the cols
row_tab+=[format_field(row[j]).rjust(col_paddings[j]) for j in range(1,len(row))]
print(' '.join(row_tab))
results={}
for i in range(cnt):
for f in funcs:
start=time.perf_counter_ns()
f(*args)
stop=time.perf_counter_ns()
results.setdefault(f.__name__, []).append(stop-start)
results={k:float(sum(v))/len(v) for k,v in results.items()}
fastest=sorted(results,key=results.get, reverse=True)
table=[['']]
if rate: table[0].append('rate/sec')
if micro: table[0].append('\u03bcsec/pass')
table[0].extend(fastest)
for e in fastest:
tmp=[e]
if rate:
tmp.append('{:,}'.format(int(round(float(cnt)*1000000.0/results[e]))))
if micro:
tmp.append('{:,.1f}'.format(results[e]/float(cnt)))
for x in fastest:
if x==e: tmp.append('--')
else: tmp.append('{:.1%}'.format((results[x]-results[e])/results[e]))
table.append(tmp)
pprint_table(table)
if __name__=='__main__':
import sys
import time
print(sys.version)
cases=(
('small, found', 9, 100),
('small, not found', 99, 100),
('large, found', 9, 1000),
('large, not found', 99, 1000)
)
for txt, tgt, mul in cases:
print(f'\n{txt}:')
arr=[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0]*mul
args=(arr,tgt,'X')
cmpthese([f1,f2,f3, f4, f5, f6, f7],args)
And the results:
3.9.1 (default, Feb 3 2021, 07:38:02)
[Clang 12.0.0 (clang-1200.0.32.29)]
small, found:
rate/sec μsec/pass f4 f3 f5 f2 f6 f7 f1
f4 133,982 7.5 -- -38.8% -49.0% -52.5% -78.5% -78.6% -82.9%
f3 219,090 4.6 63.5% -- -16.6% -22.4% -64.8% -65.0% -72.0%
f5 262,801 3.8 96.1% 20.0% -- -6.9% -57.8% -58.0% -66.4%
f2 282,259 3.5 110.7% 28.8% 7.4% -- -54.6% -54.9% -63.9%
f6 622,122 1.6 364.3% 184.0% 136.7% 120.4% -- -0.7% -20.5%
f7 626,367 1.6 367.5% 185.9% 138.3% 121.9% 0.7% -- -19.9%
f1 782,307 1.3 483.9% 257.1% 197.7% 177.2% 25.7% 24.9% --
small, not found:
rate/sec μsec/pass f4 f5 f2 f3 f6 f7 f1
f4 13,846 72.2 -- -40.3% -41.4% -47.8% -85.2% -85.4% -86.2%
f5 23,186 43.1 67.5% -- -1.9% -12.5% -75.2% -75.5% -76.9%
f2 23,646 42.3 70.8% 2.0% -- -10.8% -74.8% -75.0% -76.4%
f3 26,512 37.7 91.5% 14.3% 12.1% -- -71.7% -72.0% -73.5%
f6 93,656 10.7 576.4% 303.9% 296.1% 253.3% -- -1.0% -6.5%
f7 94,594 10.6 583.2% 308.0% 300.0% 256.8% 1.0% -- -5.6%
f1 100,206 10.0 623.7% 332.2% 323.8% 278.0% 7.0% 5.9% --
large, found:
rate/sec μsec/pass f4 f2 f5 f3 f6 f7 f1
f4 145 6,889.4 -- -33.3% -34.8% -48.6% -85.3% -85.4% -85.8%
f2 218 4,593.5 50.0% -- -2.2% -22.8% -78.0% -78.1% -78.6%
f5 223 4,492.4 53.4% 2.3% -- -21.1% -77.5% -77.6% -78.2%
f3 282 3,544.0 94.4% 29.6% 26.8% -- -71.5% -71.6% -72.3%
f6 991 1,009.5 582.4% 355.0% 345.0% 251.1% -- -0.4% -2.8%
f7 995 1,005.4 585.2% 356.9% 346.8% 252.5% 0.4% -- -2.4%
f1 1,019 981.3 602.1% 368.1% 357.8% 261.2% 2.9% 2.5% --
large, not found:
rate/sec μsec/pass f4 f5 f2 f3 f6 f7 f1
f4 147 6,812.0 -- -35.0% -36.4% -48.9% -85.7% -85.8% -86.1%
f5 226 4,424.8 54.0% -- -2.0% -21.3% -78.0% -78.1% -78.6%
f2 231 4,334.9 57.1% 2.1% -- -19.6% -77.6% -77.7% -78.2%
f3 287 3,484.0 95.5% 27.0% 24.4% -- -72.1% -72.2% -72.8%
f6 1,028 972.3 600.6% 355.1% 345.8% 258.3% -- -0.4% -2.7%
f7 1,033 968.2 603.6% 357.0% 347.7% 259.8% 0.4% -- -2.3%
f1 1,057 946.2 619.9% 367.6% 358.1% 268.2% 2.8% 2.3% --
You can simply use list comprehension in python:
def replace_element(YOUR_LIST, set_to=NEW_VALUE):
return [i
if SOME_CONDITION
else NEW_VALUE
for i in YOUR_LIST]
for your case, where you want to replace all occurrences of 1 with 10, the code snippet will be like this:
def replace_element(YOUR_LIST, set_to=10):
return [i
if i != 1 # keeps all elements not equal to one
else set_to # replaces 1 with 10
for i in YOUR_LIST]
