How can I get the concatenation of two lists in Python without modifying either one? [duplicate]

Answer 1

You can also use sum, if you give it a start argument:

>>> list1, list2, list3 = [1,2,3], ['a','b','c'], [7,8,9]
>>> all_lists = sum([list1, list2, list3], [])
>>> all_lists
[1, 2, 3, 'a', 'b', 'c', 7, 8, 9]

This works in general for anything that has the + operator:

>>> sum([(1,2), (1,), ()], ())
(1, 2, 1)

>>> sum([Counter('123'), Counter('234'), Counter('345')], Counter())
Counter({'1':1, '2':2, '3':3, '4':2, '5':1})

>>> sum([True, True, False], False)
2

With the notable exception of strings:

>>> sum(['123', '345', '567'], '')
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: sum() can't sum strings [use ''.join(seq) instead]