Python - List delete operations

  1. HOME
  2. Python
  3. List
  4. List delete operations

Introduction

Because lists are mutable, you can use the del statement to delete an item or section in place:

Demo

L = ['test', 'eggs', 'ham', 'toast'] 
del L[0]                         # Delete one item 
print( L )
del L[1:]                        # Delete an entire section 
print( L )                               # Same as L[1:] = []
#   ww w. ja  v a  2  s  .  co m

Result

Because slice assignment is a deletion plus an insertion, you can delete a section of a list by assigning an empty list to a slice (L[i:j]=[]).

Python deletes the slice named on the left, and then inserts nothing.

Assigning an empty list to an index just stores a reference to the empty list object in the specified slot, rather than deleting an item:

Demo

L = ['Already', 'got', 'one'] 
L[1:] = [] # from  w ww.  j  av a2 s  . co m
print( L )
L[0] = [] 
print( L )

Result