Elegant way to remove items from sequence in Python? [duplicate]

Answer 1

There are times when filtering (either using filter or a list comprehension) doesn't work. This happens when some other object is holding a reference to the list you're modifying and you need to modify the list in place.

for name in names[:]:
    if name[-5:] == 'Smith':
        names.remove(name)

The only difference from the original code is the use of names[:] instead of names in the for loop. That way the code iterates over a (shallow) copy of the list and the removals work as expected. Since the list copying is shallow, it's fairly quick.

Answer 2

Well, this is clearly an issue with the data structure you are using. Use a hashtable for example. Some implementations support multiple entries per key, so one can either pop the newest element off, or remove all of them.

But this is, and what you're going to find the solution is, elegance through a different data structure, not algorithm. Maybe you can do better if it's sorted, or something, but iteration on a list is your only method here.

edit: one does realize he asked for 'efficiency'... all these suggested methods just iterate over the list, which is the same as what he suggested.