Check if all elements in a list are identical

Question

I need a function which takes in a list and outputs True if all elements in the input list evaluate as equal to each other using the standard equal

Answer 1

This is a simple way of doing it:

result = mylist and all(mylist[0] == elem for elem in mylist)

This is slightly more complicated, it incurs function call overhead, but the semantics are more clearly spelled out:

def all_identical(seq):
    if not seq:
        # empty list is False.
        return False
    first = seq[0]
    return all(first == elem for elem in seq)