You don't need to define intersection. It's already a first-class part of set.

>>> b1 = [1,2,3,4,5,9,11,15]
>>> b2 = [4,5,6,7,8]
>>> set(b1).intersection(b2)
set([4, 5])

If you want:

c1 = [1, 6, 7, 10, 13, 28, 32, 41, 58, 63]
c2 = [[13, 17, 18, 21, 32], [7, 11, 13, 14, 28], [1, 5, 6, 8, 15, 16]]
c3 = [[13, 32], [7, 13, 28], [1,6]]

Then here is your solution for Python 2:

c3 = [filter(lambda x: x in c1, sublist) for sublist in c2]

In Python 3 filter returns an iterable instead of list, so you need to wrap filter calls with list():

c3 = [list(filter(lambda x: x in c1, sublist)) for sublist in c2]

Explanation:

The filter part takes each sublist's item and checks to see if it is in the source list c1. The list comprehension is executed for each sublist in c2.

Pure list comprehension version

>>> c1 = [1, 6, 7, 10, 13, 28, 32, 41, 58, 63]
>>> c2 = [[13, 17, 18, 21, 32], [7, 11, 13, 14, 28], [1, 5, 6, 8, 15, 16]]
>>> c1set = frozenset(c1)

Flatten variant:

>>> [n for lst in c2 for n in lst if n in c1set]
[13, 32, 7, 13, 28, 1, 6]

Nested variant:

>>> [[n for n in lst if n in c1set] for lst in c2]
[[13, 32], [7, 13, 28], [1, 6]]

You should flatten using this code ( taken from http://kogs-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~meine/python_tricks ), the code is untested, but I'm pretty sure it works:

def flatten(x):
    """flatten(sequence) -> list

    Returns a single, flat list which contains all elements retrieved
    from the sequence and all recursively contained sub-sequences
    (iterables).

    Examples:
    >>> [1, 2, [3,4], (5,6)]
    [1, 2, [3, 4], (5, 6)]
    >>> flatten([[[1,2,3], (42,None)], [4,5], [6], 7, MyVector(8,9,10)])
    [1, 2, 3, 42, None, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]"""

    result = []
    for el in x:
        #if isinstance(el, (list, tuple)):
        if hasattr(el, "__iter__") and not isinstance(el, basestring):
            result.extend(flatten(el))
        else:
            result.append(el)
    return result

After you had flattened the list, you perform the intersection in the usual way:

c1 = [1, 6, 7, 10, 13, 28, 32, 41, 58, 63]
c2 = [[13, 17, 18, 21, 32], [7, 11, 13, 14, 28], [1, 5, 6, 8, 15, 16]]

def intersect(a, b):
     return list(set(a) & set(b))

print intersect(flatten(c1), flatten(c2))

Do you consider [1,2] to intersect with [1, [2]]? That is, is it only the numbers you care about, or the list structure as well?

If only the numbers, investigate how to "flatten" the lists, then use the set() method.

c1 = [1, 6, 7, 10, 13, 28, 32, 41, 58, 63]
c2 = [[13, 17, 18, 21, 32], [7, 11, 13, 14, 28], [1, 5, 6, 8, 15, 16]]
c3 = [list(set(i) & set(c1)) for i in c2]
c3
[[32, 13], [28, 13, 7], [1, 6]]

For me this is very elegant and quick way to to it :)

flat list can be made through reduce easily.

All you need to use initializer - third argument in the reduce function.

reduce(
   lambda result, _list: result.append(
       list(set(_list)&set(c1)) 
     ) or result, 
   c2, 
   [])

Above code works for both python2 and python3, but you need to import reduce module as from functools import reduce. Refer below link for details.

• for python2

• for python3

Simple way to find difference and intersection between iterables

Use this method if repetition matters

from collections import Counter

def intersection(a, b):
    """
    Find the intersection of two iterables

    >>> intersection((1,2,3), (2,3,4))
    (2, 3)

    >>> intersection((1,2,3,3), (2,3,3,4))
    (2, 3, 3)

    >>> intersection((1,2,3,3), (2,3,4,4))
    (2, 3)

    >>> intersection((1,2,3,3), (2,3,4,4))
    (2, 3)
    """
    return tuple(n for n, count in (Counter(a) & Counter(b)).items() for _ in range(count))

def difference(a, b):
    """
    Find the symmetric difference of two iterables

    >>> difference((1,2,3), (2,3,4))
    (1, 4)

    >>> difference((1,2,3,3), (2,3,4))
    (1, 3, 4)

    >>> difference((1,2,3,3), (2,3,4,4))
    (1, 3, 4, 4)
    """
    diff = lambda x, y: tuple(n for n, count in (Counter(x) - Counter(y)).items() for _ in range(count))
    return diff(a, b) + diff(b, a)

from random import *

a = sample(range(0, 1000), 100)
b = sample(range(0, 1000), 100)
print(a)
print(b)
print(set(a).intersection(set(b)))