Python dict del

Best way to remove an item from a Python dictionary?

up vote 56 down vote favorite 13	What is the best way to remove an item from a dictionary? Here's a simple approach: for key, item in some_dict.items(): if item is item_to_remove: del some_dict[key] Are there better ways? Is there anything wrong with mutating (deleting items) from the dictionary while iterating it? python share improve this question asked  Mar 27 '11 at 5:47 Buttons840 2,409 5 25 49
	The underline reason for prohibiting mutating dict while iterating it is because internally there is an order for iteration, if you mutate the keys, the order would be undermined, which results unknown behavior. –  ShadowGiraffe  Jul 26 '15 at 19:21  add a comment

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up vote 52 down vote accepted

Be aware that you're currently testing for object identity (is only returns True if both operands are represented by the same object in memory - this is not always the case with two object that compare equal with ==). If you are doing this on purpose, then you could rewrite your code as some_dict = {key: value for key, value in some_dict.items() if value is not value_to_remove} But this may not do what you want: >>> some_dict = {1: "Hello", 2: "Goodbye", 3: "You say yes", 4: "I say no"} >>> value_to_remove = "You say yes" >>> some_dict = {key: value for key, value in some_dict.items() if value is not value_to_remove} >>> some_dict {1: 'Hello', 2: 'Goodbye', 3: 'You say yes', 4: 'I say no'} >>> some_dict = {key: value for key, value in some_dict.items() if value != value_to_remove} >>> some_dict {1: 'Hello', 2: 'Goodbye', 4: 'I say no'} So you probably want != instead of is not. share improve this answer edited Mar 27 '11 at 6:15 answered  Mar 27 '11 at 5:51 Tim Pietzcker 185k 22 235 331

2   Is that a dictionary compression? When were they added? –  Buttons840  Mar 27 '11 at 5:52 3   you could use some_dict.iteritems() here and put for and if statements on separate lines for readability –  J.F. Sebastian  Mar 27 '11 at 5:57 3   I believe dictionary comprehensions were added in Python 2.7. –  mithrandi  Mar 27 '11 at 5:58 2   @J.F. Sebastian: I'm on Python 3, and iteritems is now items. In Python 2.7, iteritems() is indeed better. –  Tim Pietzcker  Mar 27 '11 at 6:00 @Buttons840 they are called dict comprehensions in PEP 274 or dictionary displays. as the PEP says they were added in 2.7 as backported 3.x feats. alternatively you can feed dict() with an appropriate generator expression, which is 2.4. meta: can browse the peps here for finding stuff out. –  n611x007  May 29 '14 at 11:43 add a comment

up vote 64 down vote	>>> dic = {'a':1, 'b':2} >>> dic {'a': 1, 'b': 2} >>> dic.pop('c', 0) 0 >>> dic.pop('a', 0) 1 >>> dic {'b': 2} share improve this answer answered  Mar 27 '11 at 5:55 N 1.1 9,113 2 28 47
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up vote 28 down vote	a = {'name': 'your_name','class': 4} if 'name' in a: del a['name'] share improve this answer edited Dec 17 '13 at 16:31 answered  Mar 27 '11 at 8:18 kracekumar 4,821 2 25 39
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up vote 23 down vote

A simple comparison between del and pop(): import timeit code = """ results = {'A': 1, 'B': 2, 'C': 3} del results['A'] del results['B'] """ print timeit.timeit(code, number=100000) code = """ results = {'A': 1, 'B': 2, 'C': 3} results.pop('A') results.pop('B') """ print timeit.timeit(code, number=100000) result:  0.0329667857143 0.0451040902256 So, del is faster than pop().  share improve this answer answered  Feb 7 '13 at 3:04 Luu Tuan Anh 303 2 8

5   However, the performance difference is not great, and if you want to avoid raising an exception, you can provide a second argument to pop() (as @n-1-1 does above) - which is not an option for the deloperator. –  Alex Dupuy  Jul 11 '14 at 7:46 Ancillary to the question, but I'd also been struggling to understand timeit. Thank you for this clear example. –  Adam_G  May 1 '15 at 1:02 add a comment

up vote 7 down vote	items() returns a list, and it is that list you are iterating, so mutating the dict in the loop doesn't matter here. If you were using iteritems() instead, mutating the dict in the loop would be problematic, and likewise for viewitems() in Python 2.7. I can't think of a better way to remove items from a dict by value. share improve this answer answered  Mar 27 '11 at 5:52 mithrandi 1,060 5 21
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up vote 5 down vote	I'd build a list of keys that need removing, then remove them. It's simple, efficient and avoids any problem about simultaneously iterating over and mutating the dict. keys_to_remove = [key for key, value in some_dict.iteritems() if value == value_to_remove] for key in keys_to_remove: del some_dict[key] share improve this answer answered  Mar 27 '11 at 9:34 user97370
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up vote 0 down vote

There is nothing wrong with deleting items from the dictionary while iterating, as you've proposed. Be careful about multiple threads using the same dictionary at the same time, which may result in a KeyError or other problems. Of course, see the docs at http://docs.python.org/library/stdtypes.html#typesmapping