How to convert a nested list into a one-dimensional list in Python?

Question

I tried everything (in my knowledge) from splitting the array and joining them up together and even using itertools:

import itertools

def oneDArray(x):
    return list(itertools.chain(*x))

The result I want:

a) print oneDArray([1,[2,2,2],4]) == [1,2,2,2,4]

Strangely, it works for

b) print oneDArray([[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6], [7, 8, 9]]) == [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

Question 1) How do I get part a to work the way I want (any hints?)

Question 2) Why does the following code above work for part b and not part a??

Answer 1

You need to recursively loop over the list and check if an item is iterable(strings are iterable too, but skip them) or not.

itertools.chain will not work for [1,[2,2,2],4] because it requires all of it's items to be iterable, but 1 and 4 (integers) are not iterable. That's why it worked for the second one because it's a list of lists.

>>> from collections import Iterable
def flatten(lis):
     for item in lis:
         if isinstance(item, Iterable) and not isinstance(item, str):
             for x in flatten(item):
                 yield x
         else:        
             yield item

>>> lis = [1,[2,2,2],4]
>>> list(flatten(lis))
[1, 2, 2, 2, 4]
>>> list(flatten([[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6], [7, 8, 9]]))
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

Works for any level of nesting:

>>> a = [1,[2,2,[2]],4]
>>> list(flatten(a))
[1, 2, 2, 2, 4]

Unlike other solutions, this will work for strings as well:

>>> lis = [1,[2,2,2],"456"]
>>> list(flatten(lis))
[1, 2, 2, 2, '456']