Python - implementing Merging Arrays of Different Lengths and Handling Missing Values
I'm stuck on something that should probably be simple. I'm working on a project and hit a roadblock. I'm relatively new to this, so bear with me. I'm relatively new to this, so bear with me... I'm working on a data processing script in Python where I need to merge two lists of integers, but they have different lengths and there are missing values in the shorter array that I need to handle gracefully. I've tried using `zip()` to combine them, but this omits elements from the longer array when the shorter one runs out of items. Here's a simplified version of what I'm trying to achieve: ```python list_a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] list_b = [10, 20, 30] ``` I want to end up with a merged array like this: `[1, 10], [2, 20], [3, 30], [4, None], [5, None]` where the missing values are replaced with `None`. When I attempted to use `zip()` like this: ```python merged = list(zip(list_a, list_b)) ``` It resulted in `[(1, 10), (2, 20), (3, 30)]`, which isn't what I need. I also considered using a list comprehension, but Iām not sure how to correctly implement it to ensure that it handles the different lengths and fills in `None` for missing values. Any suggestions or best practices for tackling this question? I'm using Python 3.8.5. For context: I'm using Python on Linux. Thanks in advance! This is part of a larger CLI tool I'm building. Any help would be greatly appreciated! I'm working in a Windows 11 environment. How would you solve this?