Numpy `logical_or` for more than two arguments

Question

Numpy\'s logical_or function takes no more than two arrays to compare. How can I find the union of more than two arrays? (The same question could be asked wit

Answer 1

As boolean algebras are both commutative and associative by definition, the following statements or equivalent for boolean values of a, b and c.

a or b or c

(a or b) or c

a or (b or c)

(b or a) or c

So if you have a "logical_or" which is dyadic and you need to pass it three arguments (a, b, and c), you can call

logical_or(logical_or(a, b), c)

logical_or(a, logical_or(b, c))

logical_or(c, logical_or(b, a))

or whatever permutation you like.

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Back to python, if you want to test whether a condition (yielded by a function test that takes a testee and returns a boolean value) applies to a or b or c or any element of list L, you normally use

any(test(x) for x in L)