Python: how to create a list of n lists [[],[],[]]

今天做leetcode螺旋写入矩阵https://leetcode.com/problems/spiral-matrix-ii/ 这个题目的时候，需要初始化一个含有n个list的list，因为对python不是特别的熟悉，刚开始用的初始化写法是:

a = [[0]*n]*n  

这就生成了一个n行n列的list，但是给列表赋值的时候会发生错误，比如n=3， a[0][1]=2 那链表则变成了a = [[0,2,0],[0,2,0],[0,2,0]]

解释:
The problem is that they’re all the same exact list in memory. When you use the [x]*n syntax, what you get is a list of n many x objects, but they’re all references to the same object. They’re not distinct instances, rather, just n references to the same instance.

make a list of 3 different lists, do this:

x = [[] for i in range(3)]

因此上面的初始化应该写成：

a = [[0]*n for x in range(n)]

详细解释见:http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12791501/python-initializing-a-list-of-lists