Iterate over pairs in a list (circular fashion) in Python

Question

The problem is easy, I want to iterate over each element of the list and the next one in pairs (wrapping the last one with the first).

I\'ve thought about two unpyth

Answer 1

This infinitely cycles, for good or ill, but is algorithmically very clear.

from itertools import tee, cycle

def nextn(iterable,n=2):
    ''' generator that yields a tuple of the next n items in iterable.
    This generator cycles infinitely '''
    cycled = cycle(iterable)
    gens = tee(cycled,n)

    # advance the iterators, this is O(n^2)
    for (ii,g) in zip(xrange(n),gens):
        for jj in xrange(ii):
            gens[ii].next()

    while True:
        yield tuple([x.next() for x in gens])


def test():
    data = ((range(10),2),
        (range(5),3),
        (list("abcdef"),4),)
    for (iterable, n) in data:
        gen = nextn(iterable,n)
        for j in range(len(iterable)+n):
            print gen.next()            


test()

gives:

(0, 1)
(1, 2)
(2, 3)
(3, 4)
(4, 5)
(5, 6)
(6, 7)
(7, 8)
(8, 9)
(9, 0)
(0, 1)
(1, 2)
(0, 1, 2)
(1, 2, 3)
(2, 3, 4)
(3, 4, 0)
(4, 0, 1)
(0, 1, 2)
(1, 2, 3)
(2, 3, 4)
('a', 'b', 'c', 'd')
('b', 'c', 'd', 'e')
('c', 'd', 'e', 'f')
('d', 'e', 'f', 'a')
('e', 'f', 'a', 'b')
('f', 'a', 'b', 'c')
('a', 'b', 'c', 'd')
('b', 'c', 'd', 'e')
('c', 'd', 'e', 'f')
('d', 'e', 'f', 'a')