append a list into end of list in list

Question

Is there a good way to 'merge' 2 lists together so an item in one list can be appended to the end of a list in a list? For example...

a2dList=[['a','1','2','3','4'],['b','5','6','7','8'],[........]]
otherList = [9,8,7,6,5]

theFinalList=[['a','1','2','3','4',9],['b','5','6','7','8',8],[....]]

I'm not sure if it matter that a2dList is made of strings and otherList are numbers... I've tried append but I end up with

theFinalList=[['a','1','2','3','4'],['b','5','6','7','8'],[.......],[9,8,7,6,5]

Answer 1

>>> a2dList=[['a','1','2','3','4'],['b','5','6','7','8']]
>>> otherList = [9,8,7,6,5]
>>> for x, y in zip(a2dList, otherList):
        x.append(y)


>>> a2dList
[['a', '1', '2', '3', '4', 9], ['b', '5', '6', '7', '8', 8]]

On Python 2.x consider using itertools.izip instead for lazy zipping:

from itertools import izip # returns iterator instead of a list

Also note that zip will automatically stop upon reaching the end of the shortest iterable, so if otherList or a2dList had only 1 item, this solution would work without error, modifying lists by index risks these potential problems.

Answer 2

>>> a = [[1,2,3,4],[1,2,3,4]]
>>> b = [5,6]
>>> for index,element in enumerate(b):
        a[index].append(element)


>>> a
[[1, 2, 3, 4, 5], [1, 2, 3, 4, 6]]

Answer 3

zip(*zip(*a2dList)+[otherList])