Python: average distance between a bunch of points in the (x,y) plane

Question

The formula for computing the distance between two points in the (x, y) plane is fairly known and straightforward.

However, what is the best way to approach a problem with n points, for which you want to compute the average distance?

Example:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
x=[89.86, 23.0, 9.29, 55.47, 4.5, 59.0, 1.65, 56.2, 18.53, 40.0]
y=[78.65, 28.0, 63.43, 66.47, 68.0, 69.5, 86.26, 84.2, 88.0, 111.0]
plt.scatter(x, y,color='k')
plt.show()

The distance is simply rendered as:

import math
dist=math.sqrt((x2-x1)**2+(y2-y1)**2)

But this is a problem of combinations with repetitions that are not allowed. How to approach it?

Answer 1

itertools.combinations gives combinations without repeats:

>>> for combo in itertools.combinations([(1,1), (2,2), (3,3), (4,4)], 2):
...     print(combo)
...
((1, 1), (2, 2))
((1, 1), (3, 3))
((1, 1), (4, 4))
((2, 2), (3, 3))
((2, 2), (4, 4))
((3, 3), (4, 4))

Code for your problem:

import math
from itertools import combinations

def dist(p1, p2):
    (x1, y1), (x2, y2) = p1, p2
    return math.sqrt((x2 - x1)**2 + (y2 - y1)**2)

x = [89.86, 23.0, 9.29, 55.47, 4.5, 59.0, 1.65, 56.2, 18.53, 40.0]
y = [78.65, 28.0, 63.43, 66.47, 68.0, 69.5, 86.26, 84.2, 88.0, 111.0]

points = list(zip(x,y))
distances = [dist(p1, p2) for p1, p2 in combinations(points, 2)]
avg_distance = sum(distances) / len(distances)