How to Move All Zeros to the End of a Python List Efficiently

1. Introduction

Hello, I’m PiPi. While browsing Zhihu I found an interesting question about handling zeros in a Python list and decided to share the solutions.

2. Implementation

The first instinct was to sort, but the real solution requires processing the list directly. Below are two code snippets that solve the problem.

list1 = [0, 1, 0, 13, 2]
# list1.sort(reverse=False)
for i in list1:
    if i == 0:
        list1.remove(i)
        list1.append(i)
print(list1)

Another contributor, Yu Liang, provided an alternative solution:

list1 = [0, 1, 0, 3, 13]
r = [i for i in list1 if i != 0]
r = r + [0] * (len(list1) - len(r))
print(r)

A third contributor, Ning, offered a similar approach that works as well.

3. Conclusion

This article reviews a Python list‑handling problem, presents clear explanations and code implementations, and helps readers solve the issue efficiently.