Zip Generator
Write a generator that takes in any number of iterables and zips them together. It should output a series of lists, each containing the nth items of each iterable. It should stop when the smallest iterable runs out of elements. For example:
def zip( ):
"""
>>> z = zip([1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6], [7, 8])
>>> for i in z:
... print(i)
...
[1, 4, 7]
[2, 5, 8]
"""
"***YOUR CODE HERE***"
def zip(*iterables):
"""
>>> z = zip([1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6], [7, 8])
>>> for i in z:
... print(i)
...
[1, 4, 7]
[2, 5, 8]
"""
iterators = [iter(iterable) for iterable in iterables]
while True:
yield [next(iterator) for iterator in iterators]
There were several concepts that were tested in this problem. The first was the * syntax most commonly associated with *args. Remember that args is just the name of the list of arguments, but the variable can be named anything. For this problem, we’re going to call it iterables because it’s going to be a list of iterables. Since they are iterables, we need to make them all into iterators so the best way to do this is call iter on each of the iterables to make iterators. This can also be done using map. Next, we need a loop that runs to the end of the shortest iterator, however, we note that when we reach the end of the shortest iterator, we need to raise a StopIteration. We then note that when calling next on an iterator that is out of elements, it raises a StopIteration! So, our job is mainly complete and we can just yield the next items of each iterator. When one iterator runs out of elements, it will raise a StopIteration which in turn will make the zip function return a StopIteration as well.
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