Efficient way to rotate a list in python

2012-10-13

An answer to this question on Stack Overflow.

Question

What is the most efficient way to rotate a list in python? Right now I have something like this:

>>> def rotate(l, n):
...     return l[n:] + l[:n]
... 
>>> l = [1,2,3,4]
>>> rotate(l,1)
[2, 3, 4, 1]
>>> rotate(l,2)
[3, 4, 1, 2]
>>> rotate(l,0)
[1, 2, 3, 4]
>>> rotate(l,-1)
[4, 1, 2, 3]

Is there a better way?

Answer

Numpy can do this using the [roll][1] command:

>>> import numpy
>>> a=numpy.arange(1,10) #Generate some data
>>> numpy.roll(a,1)
array([9, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8])
>>> numpy.roll(a,-1)
array([2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1])
>>> numpy.roll(a,5)
array([5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 1, 2, 3, 4])
>>> numpy.roll(a,9)
array([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9])

[1]: http://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy/reference/generated/numpy.roll.html#numpy.roll