How to properly remove elements from array in loop using Python - python

I tried to remove only one element from an array and print remaining ones in a loop:
arr = [1,2,3,4,5]
for i in arr:
a = arr
a.remove(i)
print a
So I am expecting it to print this:
[2, 3, 4, 5]
[1, 3, 4, 5]
[1, 2, 3, 5]
[1, 2, 3, 4]
Why am I gettting the following results instead:
[2, 3, 4, 5]
[2, 4, 5]
[2, 4]

This is a classic problem of deep vs shallow copy.
Python copies the array by reference. So, any changes to the new variable (a in your case) will be reflected in the main array (arr). Removing element from a also remove elements from arr.
You need to use following for creating a copy.
a = arr[:]
This will not remove any elements from arr.

You've already got explanations, I'll provide an alternative - you can produce requested output without using remove at all:
arr = [1,2,3,4,5]
for i in arr:
a = [x for x in arr if x != i]
print a
(beware of non-unique elements in arr, if there are any, both this code and yours will produce unexpected results, though in different ways).

You can try this.
arr = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ]
for index, item in enumerate(arr):
print(arr[0:index] + arr[index+1:])
I think this can help you.
If you don't have any repeated value you can use this too.
for item in arr:
print(set(arr) - set([item]))

Python lists are mutable i.e. modifying operations (like list.remove()) on them do not produce a new list but modify the existing list instead so each your cycle actually permanently modifies the source list and elements are lost. You'd need to copy your whole list each time you want to modify it in order to achieve what you want, or you can create a new list with elements excluded, or, for very long lists, reconstructing by slicing is probably the most performant way:
arr = [1,2,3,4,5]
for i in range(len(arr)):
a = arr[0:i] + arr[i+1:]
print(a)

Related

What is in python, fastest way of reversing a part of a list in place?

Supopse I have the a huge list (say ten million elements) and I want to reverse all of the elements except last. The easiest aproach is:
a[0:-1] = a[-1::-1]
But the problem is that I think a temporary list is created. If it is so, how can avoid it?
[Edit]
For a more general case consider reversing a middle part of the list:
The only reason you may want to avoid copying the list is if you think it is too big for doing possible repeated copies.
I think there is no other way of doing it (without copies) than going manual:
a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
def revert_slice(first, last, a_list):
while first < last:
a_list[first], a_list[last] = a_list[last], a_list[first]
first += 1
last -= 1
revert_slice(0, 2, a)
print(a)
Outputs:
[3, 2, 1, 4, 5, 6]
In the call, only a temporary copy of the reference is made, not a list copy.
To achieve list reversal, except last item , i would just do -
>>> a=[1,2,3,4,5]
>>> temp=a.pop()
>>> a.reverse()
>>> a.append(temp)
>>> print(a)
[4, 3, 2, 1, 5]

How to reorder a python list backwards starting with the 0th element?

I'm trying to go through a list in reverse order, starting with the -0 indexed item (which is also the 0th item), rather than the -1 indexed item, so that I'll now have the new list to use. I've come up with two ways to do this, but neither seems both concise and clear.
a_list = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
print(a_list[:1] + a_list[:0:-1]) # take two slices of the list and add them
# [1, 5, 4, 3, 2]
list_range = range(-len(a_list)+1,1)[::-1] # create an appropriate new index range mapping
print([a_list[i] for i in list_range]) # list comprehension on the new range mapping
# [1, 5, 4, 3, 2]
Is there a way in python 3 to use slicing or another method to achieve this more simply?
If you are up for a programming golf:
>>> a_list = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
>>> [a_list[-i] for i in range(len(a_list))]
[1, 5, 4, 3, 2]
I think your first suggestion is the cleanest way of doing this. If you're really optimizing for character count, you can remove two characters from the first slice:
print(a_list[:1] + a_list[:0:-1])
Shift everything left by one and reverse.
my_list.append(my_list.pop(0))
print my_list[::-1]

Python: Complex for-loops

I am working through some code trying to understand some Python mechanics, which I just do not get. I guess it is pretty simple and I also now, what it does, but i do not know how it works. I understand the normal use of for-loops but this here... I do not know.
Remark: I know some Python, but I am not an expert.
np.array([[[S[i,j]] for i in range(order+1)] for j in range(order+1)])
The second piece of code, I have problems with is this one:
for i in range(len(u)):
for j in range(len(v)):
tmp+=[rm[i,j][k]*someFuction(name,u[i],v[j])[k] for k in range(len(rm[i,j])) if rm[i,j][k]]
How does the innermost for-loop work? And also what does the if do here?
Thank you for your help.
EDIT: Sorry that the code is so unreadable, I just try to understand it myself. S, rm are numpy matrices, someFunction returns an array with scalar entries, andtmp is just a help variable
There are quite a few different concepts inside your code. Let's start with the most basic ones. Python lists and numpy arrays have different methodologies for indexation. Also you can build a numpy array by providing it a list:
S_list = [[1,2,3], [4,5,6], [7,8,9]]
S_array = np.array(S_list)
print(S_list)
print(S_array)
print(S_list[0][2]) # indexing element 2 from list 0
print(S_array[0,2]) # indexing element at position 0,2 of 2-dimensional array
This results in:
[[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6], [7, 8, 9]]
[[1 2 3]
[4 5 6]
[7 8 9]]
3
3
So for your first line of code:
np.array([[[S[i,j]] for i in range(order+1)] for j in range(order+1)])
You are building a numpy array by providing it a list. This list is being built with the concept of list comprehension. So the code inside the np.array(...) method:
[[[S[i,j]] for i in range(order+1)] for j in range(order+1)]
... is equivalent to:
order = 2
full_list = []
for j in range(order+1):
local_list = []
for i in range(order+1):
local_list.append(S_array[i, j])
full_list.append(local_list)
print(full_list)
This results in:
[[1, 4, 7], [2, 5, 8], [3, 6, 9]]
As for your second snippet its important to notice that although typically numpy arrays have very specific and constant (for all the array) cell types you can actually give the data type object to a numpy array. So creating a 2-dimensional array of lists is possible. It is also possible to create a 3-dimensional array. Both are compatible with the indexation rm[i,j][k]. You can check this in the following example:
rm = np.array(["A", 3, [1,2,3]], dtype="object")
print(rm, rm[2][0]) # Acessing element 0 of list at position 2 of the array
rm2 = np.zeros((3, 3, 3))
print(rm2[0, 1][2]) # This is also valid
The following code:
[rm[i,j][k]*someFuction(name,u[i],v[j])[k] for k in range(len(rm[i,j])) if rm[i,j][k]]
... could be written as such:
some_list = []
for k in range(len(rm[i,j])):
if rm[i, j][k]: # Expecting a boolean value (or comparable)
a_list = rm[i,j][k]*someFuction(name,u[i],v[j])
some_list.append(a_list[k])
The final detail is the tmp+=some_list. When you sum two list they'll be concatenated as can been seen in this simple example:
tmp = []
tmp += [1, 2, 3]
print(tmp)
tmp += [4, 5, 6]
print(tmp)
Which results in this:
[1, 2, 3]
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
Also notice that multiplying a list by a number will effectively be the same as summing the list several times. So 2*[1,2] will result in [1,2,1,2].
Its a list comprehension, albeit a pretty unreadable one. That was someome doing something very 'pythonic' in spite of readablity. Just look up list comprehensions and try to rewrite it yourself as a traditional for loop. list comprehensions are very useful, not sure I would have gone that route here.
The syntax for a list comprehension is
[var for var in iterable if optional condition]
So this bottom line can be rewritten like so:
for k in range(len(rm[i,j]):
if rm[i,j][k]:
tmp+= rm[i,j][k]*someFunction(name,u[i],v[j])[k]

Python Removing a sublist in a list without changing the index of other sublists in the list

Say for example:
list = { [1,2,3],[4,5,6],[3,4],[2,7,8,9] }
is there a way in python to remove a sublist and make sure that other sublists index's remain the same. So for example if i was to remove the sublist [3,4], could i make sure that the index of [2,7,8,9] remains as 3 in this case? if this is possible it would really be helpful! thanks!
Maybe. It depends on how you use the list and just how "listy" the resulting object needs to be.
l = [ [1,2,3],[4,5,6],[3,4],[2,7,8,9] ]
You could replace the sublist with something else like a None. Then your code would have to know to ignore None when it processes the list.
print(l[3])
l[2] = None
print(l[3])
or you could convert the list to a dict and delete the member. You can still index the object but since its now a dict, your code will have to treat it like a dict.
l = dict(enumerate(l))
print l[3]
del l[2]
print l[3]
These tricks will only work in some specialized environments.
You can just delete the elements in [3,4] and keep the empty sub-list.
>>> lst = [[1,2,3],[4,5,6],[3,4],[2,7,8,9]]
>>> del lst[2][:]
>>> lst
[[1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6], [], [2, 7, 8, 9]]
Please note that you should not use list as a variable name as list is a built in function
But you can store the index with the value as a tuple. First make a modified list which has both index and value. Then you are free to remove any of the element.
lst = [[1,2,3],[4,5,6],[3,4],[2,7,8,9]]
modified = list(enumerate(lst))
To explain a bit:
modified=[]
for i,v in enumerate(lst):
modified.append((i,v))
print modified
Output:
[(0, [1, 2, 3]), (1, [4, 5, 6]), (2, [3, 4]), (3, [2, 7, 8, 9])]

Using for loop in Python 3.4 to remove particular element from array

As I am new to programming in Python. I am trying to remove particular elements from array using for loop which looks like
a=[2,3,1,4,1,1,1,5]
n=a.count(1)
for i in range (len(a)-n):
if (a[i]==1):
del a[i]
else:
a[i]=a[i]
print (a)
I want to remove 1 from array a. But, I am getting result as:
[2, 3, 4, 1, 1, 5].
That is 1 still exists in my new array. Can somebody please answer my problem?
try like this:
a = [2,3,1,4,1,1,1,5]
a = [x for x in a if x!=1] # this is called list comprehension
note Never modify list while iterating
Use a while loop and the remove method:
a = [2, 3, 1, 4, 1, 1, 1, 5]
while 1 in a:
a.remove(1)
print a
The real answer to your question (which none of the other answers addresses) is that every time you remove an item, the index i moves past it.
in your case:
a = [2,3,1,4,1,1,1,5]
after deleting the 5th item in the original list, the pointer moves to the 6th item, and the new 5th item (the second 1 in the sequence of three 1s) is skipped.
Regarding the comment never modify a list in a loop, try to implement an in-place algorithm like Fisher-Yates without modifying the list. Never say never. Know what you're doing.
The OP changes the list in-place, not creating a new list.
There are two methods, the second is safe, the first might be faster.
a = [2, 3, 1, 4, 1, 1, 1, 5]
toremove = 1
for i in range(len(a)-1, -1, -1):
if a[i] == toremove:
del a[i]
and
a = [2, 3, 1, 4, 1, 1, 1, 5]
toremove = 1
for i in range(a.count(toremove)):
a.remove(toremove)
The second removes the element however many times it exists (before the loop). Since we are not iterating on the list, it is safe to use the remove method.
Both fragments should be O(n) (but haven't done the calculations).
You can copy a and then remove but you cannot iterate over and delete elements from the same list, if your list starts with n elements python will have n pointers to each element so removing elements from the list as your are iterating over it will cause elements to be missed.python has no way of knowing you have removed elements from the list:
a = [2,3,1,4,1,1,1,5]
for ele in a[:]:
if ele == 1:
a.remove(1)
print(a)
[2, 3, 4, 5]
You can also use reversed which returns and iterator avoiding creating a whole copy of the list at once:
a = [2,3,1,4,1,1,1,5]
for ele in reversed(a):
if ele == 1:
a.remove(1)
print(a)
[2, 3, 4, 5]
Or using a list comprehension with the [:] syntax so we actually update the original object:
a[:] = (ele for ele in a if ele != 1)
All the above are linear operations using a single pass over a.
Actually as the del statement will remove elements from your list , and as the list that you bound in your loop doesn't been update after the first deleting you remove incorrect elements from your list , so if you want to use del you need to make the list name in your loop to reference to new list , that you can use a function for this aim , but as a more python way you can just use a list comprehension:
>>> a=[2,3,1,4,1,1,1,5]
>>> a=[i for i in a if i !=1]
>>> a
[2, 3, 4, 5]
Or you can use filter :
>>> a=[2,3,1,4,1,1,1,5]
>>> a=filter(lambda x: x !=1,a)
>>> a
[2, 3, 4, 5]

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