What is the difference between chain and chain.from_iterable in itertools?

问题

I could not find any valid example on the internet where I can see the difference between them and why to choose one over the other.

回答1:

The first takes 0 or more arguments, each an iterable, the second one takes one argument which is expected to produce the iterables:

from itertools import chain

chain(list1, list2, list3)

iterables = [list1, list2, list3]
chain.from_iterable(iterables)

but iterables can be any iterator that yields the iterables:

def gen_iterables():
    for i in range(10):
        yield range(i)

itertools.chain.from_iterable(gen_iterables())

Using the second form is usually a case of convenience, but because it loops over the input iterables lazily, it is also the only way you can chain an infinite number of finite iterators:

def gen_iterables():
    while True:
        for i in range(5, 10):
            yield range(i)

chain.from_iterable(gen_iterables())

The above example will give you a iterable that yields a cyclic pattern of numbers that will never stop, but will never consume more memory than what a single range() call requires.

回答2:

They do very similar things. For small number of iterables itertools.chain(*iterables) and itertools.chain.from_iterable(iterables) perform similarly.

The key advantage of from_iterables lies in the ability to handle large (potentially infinite) number of iterables since all of them need not be available at the time of the call.

回答3:

I could not find any valid example ... where I can see the difference between them [chain and chain.from_iterable] and why to choose one over the other

The accepted answer is thorough. For those seeking a quick application, consider flattening several lists:

list(itertools.chain(["a", "b", "c"], ["d", "e"], ["f"]))
# ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f']

You may wish to reuse these lists later, so you make an iterable of lists:

iterable = (["a", "b", "c"], ["d", "e"], ["f"])

Attempt

However, passing in an iterable to chain gives an unflattened result:

list(itertools.chain(iterable))
# [['a', 'b', 'c'], ['d', 'e'], ['f']]

Why? You passed in one item (a tuple). chain needs each list separately.

---

Solutions

When possible, you can unpack an iterable:

list(itertools.chain(*iterable))
# ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f']

list(itertools.chain(*iter(iterable)))
# ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f']

More generally, use .from_iterable (as it also works with infinite iterators):

list(itertools.chain.from_iterable(iterable))
# ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f']

g = itertools.chain.from_iterable(itertools.cycle(iterable))
next(g)
# "a"

回答4:

Another way to see it:

chain(iterable1, iterable2, iterable3, ...) is for when you already know what iterables you have, so you can write them as these comma-separated arguments.

chain.from_iterable(iterable) is for when your iterables (like iterable1, iterable2, iterable3) are obtained from another iterable.

来源：https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15004772/what-is-the-difference-between-chain-and-chain-from-iterable-in-itertools