In this tutorial, we will look at how to check if all the elements in a list are zero (equal to the value 0
) or not in Python with the help of some examples.
How to check if all the list items are zero?
You can use the Python built-in all()
function to check if all the elements in a list are zero or not by comparing each value in the list with 0
.

The all()
function takes in an iterable as an argument and returns True
if all the values in the iterable are truthy (represent True
in a boolean context).
So, to check if all the values in a given list are zero or not, use the all()
function to check if all the values are equal 0
. The following is the syntax –
# check if all the list values are zero all(val == 0 for val in ls)
It returns True
if all the values in the list are equal to 0
.
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Note that there are other methods as well that you can use to check if all list values are zero or not. Some of them are –
- Iterate through the list and keep a count of values that are
0
. If this count is the same as the length of the list, you can say that all values are zero. - Create a set from list values and check if the set is equal to
{0}
.
Examples
Let’s now look at some examples of using the above methods. First, we will create a few lists that we’ll use to demonstrate the methods.
# list with all values as zero ls1 = [0, 0, 0, 0] # list with different values ls2 = [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5] # empty list ls3 = [] # display the lists print(ls1) print(ls2) print(ls3)
Output:
[0, 0, 0, 0] [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5] []
Here, we created three lists – ls1
, ls2
, and ls3
. The list ls1
contains only the value 0
as its elements. The list ls2
has repeated values but not all values are equal to 0
and the list ls3
is empty (it does not contain any elements).
Example 1 – Check if all the list elements are zero using all()
The idea here is to use the all()
function to check if each list element is equal to 0
.
You can use a list comprehension to create a list of boolean values – whether a list element is equal to 0
or not and then pass this resulting list as an argument to the all()
function.
Let’s apply this to the lists ls1
and ls2
created above.
# check if all list values are zero print(all([val == 0 for val in ls1])) print(all([val == 0 for val in ls2]))
Output:
True False
We get True
for ls1
and False
for ls2
.
If you apply this method to an empty list, you’ll get True
as the output.
all([val == 0 for val in ls3])
Output:
True
Note that the all()
takes an iterable as an argument, you can directly use an iterator (without using a list comprehension).
# check if all list values are zero print(all(val == 0 for val in ls1)) print(all(val == 0 for val in ls2)) print(all(val == 0 for val in ls3))
Output:
True False True
We get the same results as above.
Example 2 – Check if all list elements are zero using a for loop
The idea, here, is to iterate through the list and keep a count of values that are equal to 0
. If the resulting count is the same as the length of the list, we can say that all the values in the list are zero.
def all_list_elements_zero(ls): count = 0 for val in ls: if val == 0: count += 1 return count == len(ls) # check if all list values are zero print(all_list_elements_zero(ls1)) print(all_list_elements_zero(ls2)) print(all_list_elements_zero(ls3))
Output:
True False True
We get True
for ls1
and False
for ls2
. Note that here we get True
for an empty list.
Example 3 – Check if all the list elements are zero using a set
In this method, we create a set from the list elements and check if the resulting set is equal to the set {0}
. If the list has only 0
as its elements, the resulting set will be {0}
(that is, a set with only 0
as the value).
# check if all list values are zero print(set(ls1) == {0}) print(set(ls2) == {0}) print(set(ls3) == {0})
Output:
True False False
We get True
for ls1
and False
for ls2
and ls3
. Note that here we get False
for an empty list.
Summary
In this tutorial, we looked at some different methods to check if all the values in a list are zero or not. The following are the different methods covered –
- Use the Python built-in
all()
function to check if each list element is equal to zero. - Iterate through the list elements and track the count of values that are zero and then compare this count with the length of the list.
- Convert the list to a set and check if the resulting set is
{0}
.
You might also be interested in –
- Python – Check If All List Elements are of the same Type
- Python – Check If All Elements in a List are Unique
- Check If a List Contains Only Numbers in Python
- Python – Check List Contains All Elements Of Another List
- Python – Check if an element is in a list
- Python – Check If List Is Sorted Or Not
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