How can I multiply all items in a list together with Python?

Question

Python 3: use functools.reduce:

>>> from functools import reduce
>>> reduce(lambda x, y: x*y, [1,2,3,4,5,6])
720

Python 2: use reduce:

>>> reduce(lambda x, y: x*y, [1,2,3,4,5,6])
720

For compatible with 2 and 3 use pip install six, then:

>>> from six.moves import reduce
>>> reduce(lambda x, y: x*y, [1,2,3,4,5,6])
720

You can use:

import operator
import functools
functools.reduce(operator.mul, [1,2,3,4,5,6], 1)

See reduce and operator.mul documentations for an explanation.

You need the import functools line in Python 3+.

I would use the numpy.prod to perform the task. See below.

import numpy as np
mylist = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] 
result = np.prod(np.array(mylist))  

If you want to avoid importing anything and avoid more complex areas of Python, you can use a simple for loop

product = 1  # Don't use 0 here, otherwise, you'll get zero 
             # because anything times zero will be zero.
list = [1, 2, 3]
for x in list:
    product *= x

Starting Python 3.8, a .prod function has been included to the math module in the standard library:

math.prod(iterable, *, start=1)

The method returns the product of a start value (default: 1) times an iterable of numbers:

import math
math.prod([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6])

>>> 720

If the iterable is empty, this will produce 1 (or the start value, if provided).