The map function can be very useful here.
Using map we can apply any function to each element of an iterable.
Python 3.x
>>> def my_mul(x,y):
... return x*y
...
>>> a = [1,2,3,4]
>>> b = [2,3,4,5]
>>>
>>> list(map(my_mul,a,b))
[2, 6, 12, 20]
>>>
Of course:
map(f, iterable)
is equivalent to
[f(x) for x in iterable]
So we can get our solution via:
>>> [my_mul(x,y) for x, y in zip(a,b)]
[2, 6, 12, 20]
>>>
In Python 2.x map() means: apply a function to each element of an iterable and construct a new list.
In Python 3.x, map construct iterators instead of lists.
Instead of my_mul we could use mul operator
Python 2.7
>>>from operator import mul # import mul operator
>>>a = [1,2,3,4]
>>>b = [2,3,4,5]
>>>map(mul,a,b)
[2, 6, 12, 20]
>>>
Python 3.5+
>>> from operator import mul
>>> a = [1,2,3,4]
>>> b = [2,3,4,5]
>>> [*map(mul,a,b)]
[2, 6, 12, 20]
>>>
Please note that since map() constructs an iterator we use * iterable unpacking operator to get a list.
The unpacking approach is a bit faster then the list constructor:
>>> list(map(mul,a,b))
[2, 6, 12, 20]
>>>