>>> x = [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1]
>>> all(el==1 for el in x)
True
This uses the function all with a generator expression.
If you always have only zeroes and ones in the list (or if you want to just check if the list doesn’t have any zeroes), then just use all without any additional tricks:
>>> x = [1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0]
>>> all(x)
False
Benchmark of some solutions:
The numbers mean what time in milliseconds it took to run the solution once (average of 1000 timeit runs)
Python 3.2.3
all(el==1 for el in x): 0.0003 0.0008 0.7903 0.0804 0.0005 0.0006
x==[1]*len(x): 0.0002 0.0003 0.0714 0.0086 0.0045 0.0554
not([1 for y in x if y!=1]): 0.0003 0.0005 0.4142 0.1117 0.1100 1.1630
set(x).issubset({1}): 0.0003 0.0005 0.2039 0.0409 0.0476 0.5310
y = set(x); len(y)==1 and y.pop()==1: WA 0.0006 0.2043 0.0517 0.0409 0.4170
max(x)==1==min(x): RE 0.0006 0.4574 0.0460 0.0917 0.5466
tuple(set(x))==(1,): WA 0.0006 0.2046 0.0410 0.0408 0.4238
not(bool(filter(lambda y: y!=1, x))): WA WA WA 0.0004 0.0004 0.0004
all(x): 0.0001 0.0001 0.0839 WA 0.0001 WA
Python 2.7.3
all(el==1 for el in x): 0.0003 0.0008 0.7175 0.0751 0.0006 0.0006
x==[1]*len(x): 0.0002 0.0003 0.0741 0.0110 0.0094 0.1015
not([1 for y in x if y!=1]): 0.0001 0.0003 0.3908 0.0948 0.0954 0.9840
set(x).issubset({1}): 0.0003 0.0005 0.2084 0.0422 0.0420 0.4198
y = set(x); len(y)==1 and y.pop()==1: WA 0.0006 0.2083 0.0421 0.0418 0.4178
max(x)==1==min(x): RE 0.0006 0.4568 0.0442 0.0866 0.4937
tuple(set(x))==(1,): WA 0.0006 0.2086 0.0424 0.0421 0.4202
not(bool(filter(lambda y: y!=1, x))): 0.0004 0.0011 0.9809 0.1936 0.1925 2.0007
all(x): 0.0001 0.0001 0.0811 WA 0.0001 WA
[PyPy 1.9.0] Python 2.7.2
all(el==1 for el in x): 0.0013 0.0093 0.4148 0.0508 0.0036 0.0038
x==[1]*len(x): 0.0006 0.0009 0.4557 0.0575 0.0177 0.1368
not([1 for y in x if y!=1]): 0.0009 0.0015 175.10 7.0742 6.4390 714.15 # No, this wasn't run 1000 times. Had to time it separately.
set(x).issubset({1}): 0.0010 0.0020 0.0657 0.0138 0.0139 0.1303
y = set(x); len(y)==1 and y.pop()==1: WA 0.0011 0.0651 0.0137 0.0137 0.1296
max(x)==1==min(x): RE 0.0011 0.5892 0.0615 0.1171 0.5994
tuple(set(x))==(1,): WA 0.0014 0.0656 0.0163 0.0142 0.1302
not(bool(filter(lambda y: y!=1, x))): 0.0030 0.0081 0.2171 0.0689 0.0680 0.7599
all(x): 0.0011 0.0044 0.0230 WA 0.0013 WA
The following test cases were used:
[] # True
[1]*6 # True
[1]*10000 # True
[1]*1000+[2]*1000 # False
[0]*1000+[1]*1000 # False
[random.randint(1, 2) for _ in range(20000)] # False
WA means that the solution gave a wrong answer; RE stands for runtime error.
So my verdict is, Winston Ewert‘s x==[1]*len(x) solution is the fastest in most cases. If you rarely have lists of all ones (the data is random, etc.) or you don’t want to use additional RAM, my solution works better. If the lists are small, the difference is negligible.