Python's map builtin function

In this article, we’ll take a look at Python’s stream processing utility function, map. This function can enable us to write powerful list/stream-processing routines that can be easy to read and understand.

Let’s go over the basics first so we have context when talking about them.

Syntax¶

Calling map:

# From official docs
map(function, iterable, ...)

Where

function

Called with each item from iterable.

iterable

Use to take inputs for calling function.

returns

Iterable of return values from calling function.

Working of map Function¶

Here’s a run-book for the map builtin function:

1. Accepts two arguments, a function (or any callable) and a list (or any sequence) of objects.
2. Call the function once per object in the list, pass the object to the function, and collect the return value from each call.
3. Return a generator that will yield the return values as collected by applying above step over and over until the list from point 1 is exhausted.

Note that in Python 2, map used to return a list object. However, in Python 3, it returns a map object which is a generator that lazily processes each item in the list as they are needed. If you don’t want to bother with this difference for now, remember to always wrap the result of a map function with a list. The official 2to3 tool handles this automatically.

Let’s look at some examples:

>>> map(str, range(5))
<map object at 0x0000000002DCD3C8>
>>> list(map(str, range(5)))
['0', '1', '2', '3', '4']

Notice how in the first call to map, we get a map object show up in the result. In this case, none of the items in range(5) have been processed by str. But when we wrap it in list the next time, we get the list of all processed items.

We can also pass in lambda functions just fine.

>>> list(map(lambda x: x**2, range(5)))
[0, 1, 4, 9, 16]

But don’t do that, that’s silly. We’ll see why later down in this article, but, put simply, comprehensions are almost always better than a map+lambda combination.

Additionally, map can also take more than one sequence in it’s arguments. In that case, the items produced by each of the other sequence make up for additional arguments for the given function.

Consider the following call to map:

list(map(sum, [1, 2, 3], [7, 8, 9], [100, 200, 300]))

This will call the given sum function three times,

sum(1, 7, 100)
sum(2, 8, 200)
sum(3, 9, 300)

It produces a result list of three items, the three return values of the above three calls to sum.

Let’s look at some useful ways we can use the map function in real world code.

Using Unbound Methods¶

If the function we want to call is a method call on each object in the given list, we could use a comprehension or do it with map+lambda like this:

>>> protocols = ['http', 'tcp', 'xmpp', 'irc']
>>> [protocol.upper() for protocol in protocols]
['HTTP', 'TCP', 'XMPP', 'IRC']
>>> list(map(lambda protocol: protocol.upper(), protocols))
['HTTP', 'TCP', 'XMPP', 'IRC']

But a much simpler way, is to provide the unbound method as the first argument to map.

>>> list(map(str.upper, protocols))
['HTTP', 'TCP', 'XMPP', 'IRC']

The reason this works is because calling unbound method with an instance as the first argument, is almost the same thing as calling the bound method of that instance. In other words, str.upper('http') is more or less the same as 'http'.upper(). This is true for any method on any class (even classmethods if you have a list of classes).

More Types of Sequences¶

Pass in sets, dictionaries (also mydict.get as function), file objects, a string (map(ord, 'abc')) etc.

The second argument to map can be any sequence data type, doesn’t have to be a list. Here’s some types that are quite useful with map:

1. Sets (function called with each item in set)
2. Dictionaries (function called with each key in the dictionary)
3. Files (function called with each line in the open file object)
4. Strings (function called with each character in the string)

We can use dictionaries as the sequence to run a function over each key in the dictionary. Additionally, we can use the .items or .values to have map run the function over each (key, value) tuple or just the values respectively.

>>> numbers = {'one': 1, 'two': 2, 'three': 3, 'four': 4}
>>> list(map(len, numbers))
[3, 3, 5, 4]
>>> list(map(str, numbers.values()))
['1', '2', '3', '4']
>>> list(map(repr, numbers.items()))
["('one', 1)", "('two', 2)", "('three', 3)", "('four', 4)"]

We can use map to transform the lines of a file as we are reading over it. This is actually very useful to do some small preprocessing on the lines, like removing trailing white space.

with open('contents.txt') as open_file:
    for line in map(str.rstrip, open_file):
        pass

We can map a function like ord (returns the Unicode code point for a single character) over a string, to get the code points for each character in the string.

>>> list(map(ord, 'aluminium'))
[97, 108, 117, 109, 105, 110, 105, 117, 109]

Dictionaries as Transformers¶

This is another neat trick where we have a dictionary and a list of some keys. We use map to transform the list of keys to a list of values, referring to the dictionary.

>>> numbers = {'one': 1, 'two': 2, 'three': 3, 'four': 4}
>>> keys = ['three', 'four', 'two', 'five', 'four', 'two']
>>> list(map(numbers.get, keys))
[3, 4, 2, None, 4, 2]

Notice that when faced with a key like 'five' that doesn’t exist in the dictionary, we get None, which is how the dict.get behaves.

Note that in this call to map, we are passing a bound method, numbers.get. This is essentially the dict.get unbound method, which has been bound to the dict instance we are calling numbers.

Infinite Sequences¶

Since map is lazy from Python 3, it can work with infinite sequences just fine. For our purposes, let’s create a generator that will generate positive even numbers from zero to infinity:

>>> def positive_evens():
...     n = 0
...     while True:
...         yield n
...         n += 2

Since this generator never stops by itself, calling list(positive_evens()) will never return. So, we have to put a cap on the amount of data we generate ourselves. Of course, map doesn’t care.

>>> for e in positive_evens():
...     if e > 3:
...         break
...     print(e)
...
0
2
>>> import math
>>> for e in map(math.sqrt, positive_evens()):
...     if e > 3:
...         break
...     print(e)
...
0.0
1.4142135623730951
2.0
2.449489742783178
2.8284271247461903

The map function doesn’t care that the generator we passed in is never ending. It only processes as many items as the for loop requests.

Be careful with infinite generators though, it’s very easy to end up in an infinite loop situation.

Side Effect Operations¶

The map function is best used as a transformation done to each item in a sequence. In this sense, the function that’s passed in is usually a pure function. Passing in functions that are purely intended for side effects (like print, log.debug etc.) is in bad taste (opinion alert!).

This is mostly because of two reasons. First, we’ll have to pass the return value of map to list to get our print calls to run. Second, we’ll then have a list of Nones that’s just a sad waste.

>>> list(map(print, protocols))
http
tcp
xmpp
irc
[None, None, None, None]

The better way to do this is to just use a for loop and make the intention clear. The intention is to do something with each item in the sequence. Not to do something to each item in the sequence and collect their return value.

>>> for protocol in protocols:
...     print(protocol)
http
tcp
xmpp
irc

Much better.

String join¶

Since we can use bound methods with map as well, we can pass in methods bound string methods like str.join:

>>> planets = {'one': 'un', 'two': 'deux', 'three': 'trois'}
>>> list(map(':'.join, planets.items()))
['one:un', 'two:deux', 'three:trois']

Case Against lambda+map¶

Since map accepts any callable, it can be tempting to use lambda functions inside map. This is almost always bad taste, and usually, comprehensions (along with zip) offer a more readable alternative.

Consider the following use of map with lambda:

>>> list(map(lambda x: x * 2, range(5)))
[0, 2, 4, 6, 8]

Now compare that with the same thing done with a comprehension:

>>> [x * 2 for x in range(5)]
[0, 2, 4, 6, 8]

Now, of course we can use comprehensions even if we are not using lambda in map by just calling it in the comprehension, true, but in that case, map just looks prettier ;).

>>> [ord(c) for c in 'hello']
[104, 101, 108, 108, 111]
>>> list(map(ord, 'hello'))
[104, 101, 108, 108, 111]

In fact, any call to map can be translated to a comprehension:

map(function, iterable, ...)
# same as
(function(*vals) for vals in zip(iterable, ...))

But that doesn’t mean map is not useful. We just have to pick the right option depending on the need.

Conclusion¶

The map function is powerful builtin, but should be used with care. If you find yourself nesting several different calls to map, you may want to rethink that strategy since it quickly becomes unreadable.

But when it produces clear-to-understand code, map can be very useful tool.

Thank you for reading! Do you have any clever examples of using map? Share in the comments!