How to find the intersection between two or more lists in R?

The intersection of lists means the elements that are unique and common between the lists. For example, if we have a list that contains 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 2, 1 and the other list that contains 2, 2, 1, 2, 1 then the intersection will return only those elements that are common between the lists and also unique, hence for this example we will get 1 and 2. In R, we can do this by using intersection function along with Reduce function.

Consider the below lists −

Example

 Live Demo

List1<-list(1:50,1:20,1:30,1:50,1:20,1:30)
List1

Output

[[1]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
[26] 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
[[2]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
[[3]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
[26] 26 27 28 29 30
[[4]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
[26] 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
[[5]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
[[6]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
[26] 26 27 28 29 30

Example

 Live Demo

List2<-list(1:50,1:30,1:20,1:30,1:50,1:20)
List2

Output

[[1]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
[26] 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
[[2]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
[26] 26 27 28 29 30
[[3]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
[[4]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
[26] 26 27 28 29 30
[[5]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
[26] 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
[[6]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Example

Reduce(intersect,list(List1,List2))

Output

[[1]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
[26] 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
[[2]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
[[3]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
[26] 26 27 28 29 30

Suppose we have one more list as shown below −

Example

 Live Demo

List3<-list(1:50,1:10,1:40,1:20,1:20,1:10)
List3

Output

[[1]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
[26] 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
[[2]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
[[3]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
[26] 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
[[4]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
[[5]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
[[6]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Now the intersection can be found as follows −

Example

Reduce(intersect,list(List1,List2,List3))

Output

[[1]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
[26] 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50
[[2]]
[1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20