Enhanced Zip for Unequal Length Iterables

This function is similar to the built-in zip function, but it allows for iterables of unequal length. When the shortest iterable is exhausted, the fillvalue is used to fill in missing values in the longer iterables.

Technology Stack : itertools

Code Type : Function

Code Difficulty : Intermediate

                
                    
def zip_longest(*iterables, fillvalue=None):
    "zip_longest(*iterables, fillvalue=None) -> zip_longest object

    Make an iterator that aggregates elements from each of the iterables.

    The iterator returns pairs of elements, one from each iterable. The shortest
    iterable is repeated until the longest is exhausted.

    Parameters
    ----------
    *iterables : iterables
        An arbitrary number of iterables.
    fillvalue : value, optional
        The value to use for missing values if the iterables are of unequal length.

    Examples
    --------
    >>> list(zip_longest('ABCD', 'xy', fillvalue='-'))
    [('A', 'x'), ('B', 'y'), ('C', '-'), ('D', '-')]
    >>> list(zip_longest('saw', 'pad', fillvalue='*'))
    [('s', 'p'), ('a', 'a'), ('w', '*'), ('-', '*')]
    >>> list(zip_longest(range(3), repeat(10), fillvalue=0))
    [(0, 0, 0), (1, 1, 1), (2, 2, 2), (0, 0, 0), (0, 0, 0), (0, 0, 0), (0, 0, 0), (0, 0, 0), (0, 0, 0), (0, 0, 0)]
    """
    from itertools import zip_longest
    return zip_longest(*iterables, fillvalue=fillvalue)