List element-wise operations in Python

List element-wise operations refer to performing operations on corresponding elements of multiple lists in a pairwise manner. These operations allow you to apply a function or operator to elements at the same index position in two or more lists, resulting in a new list with the computed values.

In this concise example-based article, we’ll use list comprehensions and built-in functions like zip() to efficiently perform element-wise operations on lists of equal lengths.

Addition (+)

This code adds corresponding elements of two or more lists:

list1 = [1, 2, 3]
list2 = [4, 5, 6]
result = [x + y for x, y in zip(list1, list2)]
print(result)

Output:

[5, 7, 9]

Subtraction (-)

The example below subtracts the corresponding elements of two or more lists:

list1 = [1, 2, 3]
list2 = [4, 5, 6]
result = [x - y for x, y in zip(list1, list2)]
print(result)

Output:

[-3, -3, -3]

Multiplication (*)

This example demonstrates how to multiply the corresponding elements of two given lists:

list1 = [1, 2, 3]
list2 = [4, 5, 6]
result = [x * y for x, y in zip(list1, list2)]
print(result)

Output:

[4, 10, 18]

Division (/)

Here’s how to divide the corresponding elements of two given lists:

list1 = [1, 2, 3]
list2 = [4, 5, 6]
result = [x / y for x, y in zip(list1, list2)]
print(result)

Output:

[0.25, 0.4, 0.5]

If list2 contains 0, then ZeroDivisionError: division by zero will occur.