itertools.compress

Describing itertools.compress(iterable, flags)

• The compress function is used to cycle through each element of an iterable, while filtering only certain values
• The selected elements within the iterator are based on the flags parameter
• compress returns an iterator of selected iterable elements
• The iterable comes from the iterable parameter
• The selected elements come from the flags parameter

Illustrating the compress Function

>>> from itertools import compress
>>> letters = 'abcde'
>>> flags = [1,0,0,1,0]

>>> itr = compress(letters, flags)
>>> for i in itr: print(i)
a
d

References

• Documentation of the Compress Function from Itertools