How to create a list of lists from a list of list of lists without "flattening"

I’ve got an inner nested list as shown below.

test_list = [[['1']], [['2', '2']], [['3', '3'], ['4', '4'], ['5', '5'], ['6', '6']], [['7', '7'], ['8'], ['7'], ['1'], ['7', '7']], [['7', '7'], ['8'], ['7'], ['7', '7']], [['2', '2']]]

I’m not looking out to flatten this list per-say. I would rather like to return a new list which would look like the new_list variable expressed below.

new_list = [['1'], ['2', '2'], [['3', '3'], ['4', '4'], ['5', '5'], ['6', '6']], [['7', '7'], ['8'], ['7'], ['1'], ['7', '7']], [['7', '7'], ['8'], ['7'], ['7', '7']], ['2', '2']]

i.e each item in the new list printed out as:

['1']
['2', '2']
[['3', '3'], ['4', '4'], ['5', '5'], ['6', '6']]
[['7', '7'], ['8'], ['7'], ['1'], ['7', '7']]
[['7', '7'], ['8'], ['7'], ['7', '7']]
['2', '2']

Thanks.

>Solution :

You can use a simple test on the sublists length in a list comprehension:

out = [l[0] if len(l)==1 else l for l in test_list]

output:

[['1'],
 ['2', '2'],
 [['3', '3'], ['4', '4'], ['5', '5'], ['6', '6']],
 [['7', '7'], ['8'], ['7'], ['1'], ['7', '7']],
 [['7', '7'], ['8'], ['7'], ['7', '7']],
 ['2', '2']]

If you really want to print:

for l in test_list:
    print(l[0] if len(l)==1 else l)

['1']
['2', '2']
[['3', '3'], ['4', '4'], ['5', '5'], ['6', '6']]
[['7', '7'], ['8'], ['7'], ['1'], ['7', '7']]
[['7', '7'], ['8'], ['7'], ['7', '7']]
['2', '2']