How to combine two lists to plot coordinate pairs?

Question

I have read x-data (from text files) into list1, and y-data similarly into list2:

list1 = { 0.0,    0.172,  0.266, ..}
list2 = {-5.605, -5.970, -6.505, ..} 

How do I combine the two lists in order to plot points {0.0, -5.605}, {0.172, -5.970}, {0.266, -6.505},....

Answer 1

If you don't like Pinguin Dirk's suggestion try

Transpose[{list1,list2}]

Answer 2

yet another..

MapThread[ {#1, #2} & , {list1, list2}]

or if you want to gracefully handle unequal length lists:

MapThread[ {#1, #2} &, Take[#, All, Min @@ Length /@ #] &@{list1, list2} ]

Answer 3

Here is another answer that creates a reusable function to pair up two vectors. The function uses a pure function that maps over the length of the shortest vector to create the pairs.

    list1 = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}; 
    list2 = {13, 18, 20, 18, 13};
    pairUp[xValues_ , yValues_] := ({xValues[[#]], yValues[[#]]}) & /@ 
       Range[Min[Length[xValues], Length[yValues]]];

    pairUp[list1, list2]
    (*
      {{1, 13}, {2, 18}, {3, 20}, {4, 18}, {5, 13}}
    *)

Hope this helps,

Edmund

PS: New to Mathematica and hoping to improve my understanding by trying to answer a few questions on here from time to time.

Answer 4

Here you go

Partition[Riffle[x,y],2]