Group Python Tuple Elements by Their First Element

A tuple is an ordered, immutable sequence of elements. In Python, the grouping of elements in a tuple list based on the values of their second elements can be done using various methods like using a dictionary or using itertools.groupby() method and using defaultdict from collections.

Grouping the first elements by second elements in the Tuple list means the tuple having the same second element can be grouped into a single group of elements. In this article, we will discuss how we can implement these methods so that we are able to easily group the first elements based on the second elements in a tuple list.

Using a Dictionary

This method involves using a dictionary to group the elements. This approach leverages the key-value pairs of a dictionary to store the first elements, using the second element as keys.

Syntax

Following is the syntax -

dict_name[key]

Here, the square bracket notation is used to assign a value to a specific key in the dictionary. If the key already exists, the value is appended to the list associated with that key; otherwise, a new key-value pair is created.

Example

In the example below, we start by initializing an empty dictionary, grouped_data. Then, for each tuple in the data list, we extract the second element as the key (item[1]) and the first element as the value (item[0]). Then, we check if the key already exists in grouped_data. If it does, we append the value to the existing list of values associated with that key.

Otherwise, we create a new key-value pair, where the key is the second element and the value is a new list containing the first element. Finally, we iterate over the grouped_data dictionary and print each key along with its corresponding values.

# Sample tuple list
data = [('Apple', 'Fruit'), ('Banana', 'Fruit'), ('Carrot', 'Vegetable'), ('Potato', 'Vegetable')]

# Grouping elements using a dictionary
grouped_data = {}
for item in data:
    key = item[1]
    value = item[0]
    if key in grouped_data:
        grouped_data[key].append(value)
    else:
        grouped_data[key] = [value]

# Printing the grouped data
for key, values in grouped_data.items():
    print(key, ":", values)

The result is obtained as follows -

Fruit : ['Apple', 'Banana']
Vegetable : ['Carrot', 'Potato']

Using itertools.groupby() Function

The itertools.groupby() function provides another efficient way to group elements based on a specific criterion. This method requires the input data to be sorted based on the second element.

Syntax

Following is the syntax -

groups[key]

Here, the groupby() function from the itertools module iterates over the groupby object. The function returns both the key and a group of consecutive items with the same value.

The key and group are then used to create a key-value pair in the group's dictionary, where the key is the unique value, and the value is the list of grouped items.

Example

In the example below, we import the groupby() function from the itertools module. The groupby() function requires the input data to be sorted based on the grouping key.

Therefore, we sort the data list using the sorted() function and provide a lambda function as the key parameter to specify sorting based on the second element (x[1]). Then, we iterate over the groupby() function's output, which returns a key and an iterator of grouped elements. For each group, we extract the key and create a list of the corresponding first elements (item[0]).

from itertools import groupby

# Sample tuple list
data = [('Apple', 'Fruit'), ('Banana', 'Fruit'), ('Carrot', 'Vegetable'), ('Potato', 'Vegetable')]

# Sorting the data based on the second element
sorted_data = sorted(data, key=lambda x: x[1])

# Grouping elements using itertools.groupby()
grouped_data = {}
for key, group in groupby(sorted_data, key=lambda x: x[1]):
    grouped_data[key] = [item[0] for item in group]

# Printing the grouped data
for key, values in grouped_data.items():
    print(key, ":", values)

We will get the output as follows -

Fruit : ['Apple', 'Banana']
Vegetable : ['Carrot', 'Potato']

Using defaultdict From Collections

The defaultdict class from the collections module offers a convenient way to group elements in a list. It automatically creates a new list as the default value for each key, simplifying the grouping process.

Syntax

Following is the syntax -

groups[item].append(item)

Here, the syntax initializes a defaultdict object called groups with a default value of an empty list using the defaultdict() function from the collections module. The second line of code uses the key (item) to access the list associated with that key in the group's dictionary and appends the item to the list.

Example

In the example below, we import the defaultdict class from the collections module. When initializing the grouped_data dictionary, we set the default value as an empty list using defaultdict(list).

Then, we iterate over the data list, extracting the second element as the key (item[1]) and the first element as the value (item[0]). By using defaultdict, we can directly append the value to the list associated with that key.

from collections import defaultdict

# Sample tuple list
data = [('Apple', 'Fruit'), ('Banana', 'Fruit'), ('Carrot', 'Vegetable'), ('Potato', 'Vegetable')]

# Grouping elements using defaultdict
grouped_data = defaultdict(list)
for item in data:
    grouped_data[item[1]].append(item[0])

# Printing the grouped data
for key, values in grouped_data.items():
    print(key, ":", values)

Following is the output of the above program -

Fruit : ['Apple', 'Banana']
Vegetable : ['Carrot', 'Potato']