Remove multiple items from a Python list in just one statement

Question

In python, I know how to remove items from a list.

item_list = [\'item\', 5, \'foo\', 3.14, True]
item_list.remove(\'item\')
item_list.remove(5)

Answer 1

I'm reposting my answer from here because I saw it also fits in here. It allows removing multiple values or removing only duplicates of these values and returns either a new list or modifies the given list in place.

---

def removed(items, original_list, only_duplicates=False, inplace=False):
    """By default removes given items from original_list and returns
    a new list. Optionally only removes duplicates of `items` or modifies
    given list in place.
    """
    if not hasattr(items, '__iter__') or isinstance(items, str):
        items = [items]

    if only_duplicates:
        result = []
        for item in original_list:
            if item not in items or item not in result:
                result.append(item)
    else:
        result = [item for item in original_list if item not in items]

    if inplace:
        original_list[:] = result
    else:
        return result

Docstring extension:

"""
Examples:
---------

    >>>li1 = [1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5]
    >>>removed(4, li1)
       [1, 2, 3, 5, 5]
    >>>removed((4,5), li1)
       [1, 2, 3]
    >>>removed((4,5), li1, only_duplicates=True)
       [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

    # remove all duplicates by passing original_list also to `items`.:
    >>>removed(li1, li1, only_duplicates=True)
      [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

    # inplace:
    >>>removed((4,5), li1, only_duplicates=True, inplace=True)
    >>>li1
        [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

    >>>li2 =['abc', 'def', 'def', 'ghi', 'ghi']
    >>>removed(('def', 'ghi'), li2, only_duplicates=True, inplace=True)
    >>>li2
        ['abc', 'def', 'ghi']
"""

---

You should be clear about what you really want to do, modify an existing list, or make a new list with the specific items missing. It's important to make that distinction in case you have a second reference pointing to the existing list. If you have, for example...

li1 = [1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5]
li2 = li1
# then rebind li1 to the new list without the value 4
li1 = removed(4, li1)
# you end up with two separate lists where li2 is still pointing to the 
# original
li2
# [1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5]
li1
# [1, 2, 3, 5, 5]

This may or may not be the behaviour you want.