[python] Inline for loop

I'm trying to learn neat pythonic ways of doing things, and was wondering why my for loop cannot be refactored this way:

q  = [1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
vm = [-1, -1, -1, -1]

for v in vm:
    if v in q:
        p.append(q.index(v))
    else:
        p.append(99999)

vm[p.index(max(p))] = i

I tried replacing the for loop with:

[p.append(q.index(v)) if v in q else p.append(99999) for v in vm]

But it doesn't work. The for v in vm: loop evicts numbers from vm based on when they come next in q.

q  = [1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
vm = [-1, -1, -1, -1,1,2,3,1]

p = []
for v in vm:
    if v in q:
        p.append(q.index(v))
    else:
        p.append(99999)

print p
p = [q.index(v) if v in q else 99999 for v in vm]
print p

Output:

[99999, 99999, 99999, 99999, 0, 1, 2, 0]
[99999, 99999, 99999, 99999, 0, 1, 2, 0]

Instead of using append() in the list comprehension you can reference the p as direct output, and use q.index(v) and 99999 in the LC.

Not sure if this is intentional but note that q.index(v) will find just the first occurrence of v, even tho you have several in q. If you want to get the index of all v in q, consider using a enumerator and a list of already visited indexes

Something in those lines(pseudo-code):

visited = []
for i, v in enumerator(vm):
   if i not in visited:
       p.append(q.index(v))
   else:
       p.append(q.index(v,max(visited))) # this line should only check for v in q after the index of max(visited)
   visited.append(i)

your list comphresnion will, work but will return list of None because append return None:

demo:

>>> a=[]
>>> [ a.append(x) for x in range(10) ]
[None, None, None, None, None, None, None, None, None, None]
>>> a
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

better way to use it like this:

>>> a= [ x for x in range(10) ]
>>> a
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

you can use enumerate keeping the ind/index of the elements is in vm, if you make vm a set you will also have 0(1) lookups:

vm = {-1, -1, -1, -1}

print([ind if q in vm else 9999 for ind,ele in enumerate(vm) ])