Partitioning a list to several depths

Question

I an aware of the Partition command which partitions a list into sublists. I'm curious as to whether there is an efficient way to partition a list several times over in one step. For example, can I turn the list

{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8}

into the list

{{{1,2},{3,4}},{{5,6},{7,8}}}

through one use of the Partition command instead of two (or indeed any command). In actual fact, I'll be going to a list of many levels of nested lists, which is why I'm keen to know the answer. Thanks in advance for any help.

Answer 1

Try ArrayReshape:

ArrayReshape[{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8}, {2, 2, 2}]

{{{1, 2}, {3, 4}}, {{5, 6}, {7, 8}}}

or Fold+ Partition:

Fold[Partition, Range[8], {2, 2}]

{{{1, 2}, {3, 4}}, {{5, 6}, {7, 8}}}

or Nest + Partition:

Nest[Partition[#, 2] &, Range @ 8, 2]

 {{{1, 2}, {3, 4}}, {{5, 6}, {7, 8}}}

There is also the (undocumented) 6-argument of form of Partition:

Partition[Range @ 8, 4, 4, 1, {}, Partition[{##}, 2] &]

 {{{1, 2}, {3, 4}}, {{5, 6}, {7, 8}}}