I know that it is possible for a function to return multiple values in Python. What I would like to do is return each element in a list as a separate return value. This could be an arbitrary number of elements, depending on user input. I am wondering if there is a pythonic way of doing so?
For example, I have a function that will return a pair of items as an array, e.g., it will return [a, b]
.
However, depending on the input given, the function may produce multiple pairs, which will result in the function returning [[a, b], [c, d], [e, f]]
. Instead, I would like it to return [a, b], [c, d], [e, f]
As of now, I have implemented a very shoddy function with lots of temporary variables and counts, and am looking for a cleaner suggestion.
Appreciate the help!
Practical Data Science using Python Any object, even a list, can be returned by a Python function. Create the list object within the function body, assign it to a variable, and then use the keyword "return" to return the list to the function's caller.
The Python return keyword exits a function and instructs Python to continue executing the main program. The return keyword can send a value back to the main program. A value could be a string, a tuple, or any other object. This is useful because it allows us to process data within a function.
There is a yield statement which matches perfectly for this usecase.
def foo(a):
for b in a:
yield b
This will return a generator which you can iterate.
print [b for b in foo([[a, b], [c, d], [e, f]])
When a python function executes:
return a, b, c
what it actually returns is the tuple (a, b, c)
, and tuples are unpacked on assignment, so you can say:
x, y, z = f()
and all is well. So if you have a list
mylist = [4, "g", [1, 7], 9]
Your function can simply:
return tuple(mylist)
and behave like you expect:
num1, str1, lst1, num2 = f()
will do the assignments as you expect.
If what you really want is for a function to return an indeterminate number of things as a sequence that you can iterate over, then you'll want to make it a generator using yield
, but that's a different ball of wax.
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