List comprehension vs. lambda + filter

Question

I happened to find myself having a basic filtering need: I have a list and I have to filter it by an attribute of the items.

My code looked like this:

Answer 1

Filter is just that. It filters out the elements of a list. You can see the definition mentions the same(in the official docs link I mentioned before). Whereas, list comprehension is something that produces a new list after acting upon something on the previous list.(Both filter and list comprehension creates new list and not perform operation in place of the older list. A new list here is something like a list with, say, an entirely new data type. Like converting integers to string ,etc)

In your example, it is better to use filter than list comprehension, as per the definition. However, if you want, say other_attribute from the list elements, in your example is to be retrieved as a new list, then you can use list comprehension.

return [item.other_attribute for item in my_list if item.attribute==value]

This is how I actually remember about filter and list comprehension. Remove a few things within a list and keep the other elements intact, use filter. Use some logic on your own at the elements and create a watered down list suitable for some purpose, use list comprehension.