In Python, you can multiply two lists by using a for loop to iterate over each element in the first list, and multiplying it by the corresponding element in the second list.
Lets discuss various ways in which this task can be performed.
Method #1 : Naive Method
In this method, we simply run a loop and append to the new list the product of the both list elements at similar index till we reach end of the smaller list. This is the basic method to achieve this task.
# Python code to demonstrate # Multiplying two lists # naive method # initializing lists test_list1 = [1, 3, 4, 6, 8] test_list2 = [4, 5, 6, 2, 10] # printing original lists print ("Original list 1 : " + str(test_list1)) print ("Original list 2 : " + str(test_list2)) # using naive method to # Multiplying two lists res_list = [] for i in range(0, len(test_list1)): res_list.append(test_list1[i] * test_list2[i]) # printing resultant list print ("Resultant list is : " + str(res_list))
Output :
Original list 1 : [1, 3, 4, 6, 8] Original list 2 : [4, 5, 6, 2, 10] Resultant list is : [4, 15, 24, 12, 80]
Method #2 : Using List Comprehension
The shorthand for the above explained technique, list comprehensions are usually quicker to type and hence must be preferred to perform these kind of programming tasks.
# Python code to demonstrate # Multiplying two lists # list comprehension # initializing lists test_list1 = [1, 3, 4, 6, 8] test_list2 = [4, 5, 6, 2, 10] # printing original lists print ("Original list 1 : " + str(test_list1)) print ("Original list 2 : " + str(test_list2)) # using list comprehension to # Multiplying two lists res_list = [test_list1[i] * test_list2[i] for i in range(len(test_list1))] # printing resultant list print ("Resultant list is : " + str(res_list))
Output :
Original list 1 : [1, 3, 4, 6, 8] Original list 2 : [4, 5, 6, 2, 10] Resultant list is : [4, 15, 24, 12, 80]