How to generically transform a list?

[Roel Schroeven]

Marco Aschwanden wrote:
> 
> Thanks to all the hints which seem to prove that there is one and only 
> one sensible approach - though some (like me) needed a few more lines.
> 
> It is just funny how easy horizontal slicing is made (list[:]) but how 
> "difficult" vertical slicing is. It is a common task and one does not 
> realize how often one does need vertical slicing. eg.: getting the keys 
> of dictionary is a vertical slicing, or turning a list into a dict 
> involves vertical slicing...
> 
> Just out of pure curiosity: Is there a langue that allows vertical and 
> horizontal slicing and dicing with the same built-in pattern?

You can do it (sorta) in Python: use zip to turn the columns into rows 
and vice-versa, apply the slicing, than zip back:

 >>> l = [['a', 1, 11, 'aa'], ['b', 2, 22, 'bb'], ['c', 3, 33, 'cc']]
 >>> zip(*(zip(*l)[2:0:-1]))
[(11, 1), (22, 2), (33, 3)]

Step-by-step to see what happens:

 >>> zip(*l)
[('a', 'b', 'c'), (1, 2, 3), (11, 22, 33), ('aa', 'bb', 'cc')]
 >>> zip(*l)[2:0:-1]
[(11, 22, 33), (1, 2, 3)]
 >>> zip(*(zip(*l)[2:0:-1]))
[(11, 1), (22, 2), (33, 3)]

-- 
"Codito ergo sum"
Roel Schroeven