python - Copying a list of lists into part of another one in the most pythonic way -

i have large list of lists, containing zeros. have another, smaller list of lists want copy positions in bigger list of lists. want replace original values. way i've found far this:

start = (startrow, startcol)  in range( start[0], start[0] + len(shortlist) ):   j in range( start[1], start[1] + len(shortlist[0]) ):     longlist[i][j] = shortlist[i-start[0]][j-start[1]] 

however, doesn't feel pythonic - far know, list comprehensions in general prefered loops, , though didn't find in few hours of searching, there might function doing more elegantly. there better solution mine?

edit: i'm interested in numpy solutions well, or perhaps more in plain python ones.

you can replace inner loop slice-replacement:

start = (startrow, startcol)  i, elements in enumerate(shortlist, start[0]):     longlist[i][start[1]:start[1] + len(elements)] = elements 

depending on want do, using numpy-arrays alternative:

large[startrow:startrow + small.shape[0], startcol:startcol + small.shape[1]] = small