PYTHON
Perform Efficient Set Operations and Uniqueness
Explore Python's `set` data structure to quickly find unique elements, perform unions, intersections, and differences, optimizing data manipulation tasks.
# Create sets
set1 = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}
set2 = {4, 5, 6, 7, 8}
list_with_duplicates = [1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 1]
print(f"Set 1: {set1}")
print(f"Set 2: {set2}")
# 1. Remove duplicates from a list
unique_elements = list(set(list_with_duplicates))
print(f"Unique elements from list: {unique_elements}")
# 2. Union: Elements in either set1 OR set2
union_set = set1.union(set2)
# union_set = set1 | set2 # Alternative operator syntax
print(f"Union (set1 | set2): {union_set}")
# 3. Intersection: Elements in BOTH set1 AND set2
intersection_set = set1.intersection(set2)
# intersection_set = set1 & set2 # Alternative operator syntax
print(f"Intersection (set1 & set2): {intersection_set}")
# 4. Difference: Elements in set1 BUT NOT in set2
difference_set1 = set1.difference(set2)
# difference_set1 = set1 - set2 # Alternative operator syntax
print(f"Difference (set1 - set2): {difference_set1}")
# 5. Symmetric Difference: Elements in either set1 or set2, BUT NOT in both
symmetric_difference_set = set1.symmetric_difference(set2)
# symmetric_difference_set = set1 ^ set2 # Alternative operator syntax
print(f"Symmetric Difference (set1 ^ set2): {symmetric_difference_set}")
# 6. Check subset/superset
subset_check = {1, 2}.issubset(set1)
superset_check = set1.issuperset({1, 6})
print(f"Is {{1, 2}} a subset of set1? {subset_check}")
print(f"Is set1 a superset of {{1, 6}}? {superset_check}")
How it works: Python's `set` data structure is an unordered collection of unique hashable elements. It's highly efficient for tasks like removing duplicates from a list and performing mathematical set operations such as union, intersection, difference, and symmetric difference. This snippet demonstrates these core functionalities, which are invaluable for data cleaning, comparison, and analysis.