Can I use loop in this function?

Question

I'm creating a function for a game which includes a board and words. I have designed this function and I don't really know if I could use a loop or a list method to run it correctly. This is the function I am creating:

def make_str_from_column(board, column_index):
    """ (list of list of str, int) -> str

    Return the characters from the column of the board with index column_index
    as a single string.

    >>> make_str_from_column([['A', 'N', 'T', 'T'], ['X', 'S', 'O', 'B']], 1)
    'NS'
    """

As is, your question is very hard to understand. Where is the actual function implementation? What do you mean by list method? (I'm assuming, you mean a list comprehension) Also, StackOverflow is only for coding questions and we rarely take on things that already work. Questions regarding improvement should be asked on codereview.stackexchange.com. — FMaz
– FMaz, Commented Jan 30, 2017 at 16:57

Patrick Haugh · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-30 16:57:59Z

2

You have a couple of options for getting the letters. You could use a simple loop

ret = []
for sublist in board:
    ret.append(sublist[column_index])

You could simplify that into a list comprehension

[sublist[column_index] for sublist in board]

Or you can use zip, which will actually make each column, and then you can choose among them.

list(zip(*board))[column_index]

Personally, I would choose the list comprehension.

Once you have that however, you should use ''.join to combine the list of strings into a single string

return ''.join([sublist[column_index] for sublist in board])

answered Jan 30, 2017 at 16:57

Patrick Haugh

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2 Comments

Kenneth Rivadeneira Guadamud Over a year ago

I think a list comprehension is better too. But in this case I have to use functions that I have created earlier. Under this conditions zip could be used anyway? or use it could be more difficult? PD: I didn't know zip option.

Patrick Haugh Over a year ago

@KennethRivadeneiraGuadamud You can read more about zip here: docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html#zip

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