Python: Cartesian product of two or more given lists using itertools

Last update on April 22 2025 12:51:24 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

12. Cartesian Product of Lists

Write a Python program to compute the Cartesian product of two or more given lists using itertools.

In mathematics, specifically set theory, the Cartesian product of two sets A and B, denoted A × B, is the set of all ordered pairs (a, b) where a is in A and b is in B. In terms of set-builder notation, that is
Flowchart: Cartesian product
A table can be created by taking the Cartesian product of a set of rows and a set of columns. If the Cartesian product rows × columns is taken, the cells of the table contain ordered pairs of the form (row value, column

Sample Solution:

Python Code:

import itertools 
def cartesian_product(lists):
    return list(itertools.product(*lists))

ls = [[1,2],[3,4]]
print("Original Lists:",ls)
print("Cartesian product of the said lists: ",cartesian_product(ls))
ls = [[1,2,3],[3,4,5]]
print("\nOriginal Lists:",ls)
print("Cartesian product of the said lists: ",cartesian_product(ls))
ls = [[],[1,2,3]]
print("\nOriginal Lists:",ls)
print("Cartesian product of the said lists: ",cartesian_product(ls))
ls = [[1,2],[]]
print("\nOriginal Lists:",ls)
print("Cartesian product of the said lists: ",cartesian_product(ls))

Sample Output:

Original Lists: [[1, 2], [3, 4]]
Cartesian product of the said lists:  [(1, 3), (1, 4), (2, 3), (2, 4)]

Original Lists: [[1, 2, 3], [3, 4, 5]]
Cartesian product of the said lists:  [(1, 3), (1, 4), (1, 5), (2, 3), (2, 4), (2, 5), (3, 3), (3, 4), (3, 5)]

Original Lists: [[], [1, 2, 3]]
Cartesian product of the said lists:  []

Original Lists: [[1, 2], []]
Cartesian product of the said lists:  []

For more Practice: Solve these Related Problems:

Write a Python program to compute the Cartesian product of two or more lists and then filter out tuples where the sum of elements is odd.
Write a Python program to generate the Cartesian product of multiple lists and map a lambda to format each tuple into a string.
Write a Python program to compute the Cartesian product and then sort the resulting tuples by their first element.
Write a Python program to calculate the Cartesian product of lists and then remove any duplicate tuples based on a custom comparison function.

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Python Code Editor:

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