Python - Flatten the list of dictionaries

Question

List of dictionaries:

data = [{
         \'a\':{\'l\':\'Apple\',
                \'b\':\'Milk\',
                \'d\':\'Meatball\'},
         \'b\':{\'favou         


        

Answer 1

You can use functools.reduce along with a simple list comprehension to flatten out the list the of dicts

>>> from functools import reduce 

>>> data = [{'b': {'dislike': 'juice', 'favourite': 'coke'}, 'a': {'l': 'Apple', 'b': 'Milk', 'd': 'Meatball'}}, {'b': {'dislike': 'juice3', 'favourite': 'coke2'}, 'a': {'l': 'Apple1', 'b': 'Milk1', 'd': 'Meatball2'}}]
>>> [reduce(lambda x,y: {**x,**y},d.values()) for d in data]
>>> [{'dislike': 'juice', 'l': 'Apple', 'd': 'Meatball', 'b': 'Milk', 'favourite': 'coke'}, {'dislike': 'juice3', 'l': 'Apple1', 'd': 'Meatball2', 'b': 'Milk1', 'favourite': 'coke2'}]

Time benchmark is as follows:

>>> import timeit
>>> setup = """
      from functools import reduce
      data = [{'b': {'dislike': 'juice', 'favourite': 'coke'}, 'a': {'l': 'Apple', 'b': 'Milk', 'd': 'Meatball'}}, {'b': {'dislike': 'juice3', 'favourite': 'coke2'}, 'a': {'l': 'Apple1', 'b': 'Milk1', 'd': 'Meatball2'}}]
  """
>>> min(timeit.Timer("[reduce(lambda x,y: {**x,**y},d.values()) for d in data]",setup=setup).repeat(3,1000000))
>>> 1.525032774952706

Time benchmark of other answers on my machine

>>> setup = """
        data = [{'b': {'dislike': 'juice', 'favourite': 'coke'}, 'a': {'l': 'Apple', 'b': 'Milk', 'd': 'Meatball'}}, {'b': {'dislike': 'juice3', 'favourite': 'coke2'}, 'a': {'l': 'Apple1', 'b': 'Milk1', 'd': 'Meatball2'}}]
    """
>>> min(timeit.Timer("[{k: v for x in d.values() for k, v in x.items()} for d in data]",setup=setup).repeat(3,1000000))
>>> 2.2488374650129117

>>> min(timeit.Timer("[{k: x[k] for x in d.values() for k in x} for d in data]",setup=setup).repeat(3,1000000))
>>> 1.8990078769857064

>>> code = """
      L = []
      for d in data:
          temp = {}
          for key in d:
              temp.update(d[key])

          L.append(temp)
    """

>>> min(timeit.Timer(code,setup=setup).repeat(3,1000000))
>>> 1.4258553800173104

>>> setup = """
      from itertools import chain
      data = [{'b': {'dislike': 'juice', 'favourite': 'coke'}, 'a': {'l': 'Apple', 'b': 'Milk', 'd': 'Meatball'}}, {'b': {'dislike': 'juice3', 'favourite': 'coke2'}, 'a': {'l': 'Apple1', 'b': 'Milk1', 'd': 'Meatball2'}}]
    """
>>> min(timeit.Timer("[dict(chain(*map(dict.items, d.values()))) for d in data]",setup=setup).repeat(3,1000000))
>>> 3.774383604992181