How to remove the items from list in python based on other list

Question

I have

list1 = [var1,var2,var3,var4,var5]

and other

list2 = [var4, var2]

Now i want to subtract them so that final result is

list1 = [var1,var3,var5]

Artsiom Rudzenka · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-09 07:05:21Z

4

Use list comprehension this way:

l1 = [var1,var2,var3,var4,var5]
l2 = [var4, var2]

diff = [x for x in l1 if x not in l2]

answered Nov 9, 2012 at 7:05

Artsiom Rudzenka

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2 Comments

you could add l2 = set(l2) to speed up x not in l2 lookup.

yes sure - i know, but sometimes it is not so important - so i just tried to provide an option for OP

Vivek S · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-09 07:02:55Z

3

Assumin lists don't have duplicate items,

list(set(list1)-set(list2))

answered Nov 9, 2012 at 7:02

Vivek S

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Denis · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-09 07:05:07Z

0

You can convert your lists in sets and get difference between them

list1 = [1,2,3,4]
list2 = [1, 3]
list1 = set(list1)
list2 = set(list2)
list1.difference(list2)
OUTPUT: set([2, 4])

answered Nov 9, 2012 at 7:05

Denis

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