Question

How do I use Mathematica’s Gather/Collect/Transpose functions to convert:

{ { {1, foo1}, {2, foo2}, {3, foo3} }, { {1, bar1}, {2, bar2}, {3, bar3} } } 

to

{ {1, foo1, bar1}, {2, foo2, bar2}, {3, foo3, bar3} } 

EDIT: Thanks! I was hoping there was a simple way, but I guess not!

Answer 1

Here is your list:

tst = {{{1, foo1}, {2, foo2}, {3, foo3}}, {{1, bar1}, {2, bar2}, {3,  bar3}}}

Here is one way:

In[84]:= 
Flatten/@Transpose[{#[[All,1,1]],#[[All,All,2]]}]&@
  GatherBy[Flatten[tst,1],First]

Out[84]= {{1,foo1,bar1},{2,foo2,bar2},{3,foo3,bar3}}

EDIT

Here is a completely different version, just for fun:

In[106]:= 
With[{flat = Flatten[tst,1]},
   With[{rules = Dispatch[Rule@@@flat]},
       Map[{#}~Join~ReplaceList[#,rules]&,DeleteDuplicates[flat[[All,1]]]]]]

Out[106]= {{1,foo1,bar1},{2,foo2,bar2},{3,foo3,bar3}}

EDIT 2

And here is yet another way, using linked lists and inner function to accumulate the results:

In[113]:= 
Module[{f},f[x_]:={x};
  Apply[(f[#1] = {f[#1],#2})&,tst,{2}];
  Flatten/@Most[DownValues[f]][[All,2]]]

Out[113]= {{1,foo1,bar1},{2,foo2,bar2},{3,foo3,bar3}}

EDIT 3

Ok, for those who consider all of the above too complicated, here is a really simple rule – based solution:

In[149]:= 
GatherBy[Flatten[tst, 1], First] /. els : {{n_, _} ..} :> {n}~Join~els[[All, 2]]

Out[149]= {{1, foo1, bar1}, {2, foo2, bar2}, {3, foo3, bar3}}