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Nail Down Nested List Comprehensions in Python: Understanding Complexity Made Easy

Discover the power behind nested list comprehensions and learn how to master them with ease

Max N
2 min readApr 4, 2024
Photo by Tim Johnson on Unsplash

When dealing with multidimensional data structures such as matrices or nested lists, nesting list comprehensions becomes essential. It enables concise yet efficient ways of transforming and manipulating large datasets. By understanding nested list comprehensions, developers can significantly reduce the complexity of their codes while maintaining readability.

Let us delve deeper into the concept of nested list comprehensions, along with real-world examples, to solidify our grasp.

Basic Example — Flattening Lists

Consider the following list consisting of several nested lists:

nested_lists = [[1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6]]
flattened_lists = [item for sublist in nested_lists for item in sublist]
print(flattened_lists) # Output: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

The above snippet demonstrates flattening a list using a double loop inside a single pair of square brackets. Each inner list (sublist) iteratively passes its items to the outermost list comprehension via the variable item.

More Realistic Examples

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Max N
Max N

Written by Max N

A writer that writes about JavaScript and Python to beginners. If you find my articles helpful, feel free to follow.

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