python: avoiding zip truncation of list

Question

I have the following python code that uses zip() and it seems to cause unintended data truncation.

inc_data = [[u\'Period Ending\', u\'Dec 31, 2012\', u\'Dec         


        

Answer 1

Use izip_longest:

from itertools import izip_longest

inc_data = [[u'Period Ending', u'Dec 31, 2012', u'Dec 31, 2011', u'Dec 31, 2010'],
            [u'Total Revenue\n', u'104,507,100\n', u'106,916,100\n', u'99,870,100\n'],
            [u'Cost of Revenue\n',u'56,000,000\n']
            ]

print list(izip_longest(*inc_data, fillvalue=u'')) 


# [(u'Period Ending', u'Total Revenue\n', u'Cost of Revenue\n'), 
   (u'Dec 31, 2012', u'104,507,100\n', u'56,000,000\n'), 
   (u'Dec 31, 2011', u'106,916,100\n', u''), 
   (u'Dec 31, 2010', u'99,870,100\n', u'')]