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< 2.4 Data Structure - Tuples | Contents | 2.6 Data Structure - Dictionaries >
Data Structure - Sets¶
Another data type in Python is sets. It is a type that could store an unordered collection with no duplicate elements. It is also support the mathematical operations like union, intersection, difference, and symmetric difference. It is defined by using a pair of braces { }, and its elements are separated by commas.
{3, 3, 2, 3, 1, 4, 5, 6, 4, 2}
{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}
One quick usage of this is to find out the unique elements in a string, list, or tuple.
TRY IT! Find the unique elements in list [1, 2, 2, 3, 2, 1, 2].
set_1 = set([1, 2, 2, 3, 2, 1, 2])
set_1
{1, 2, 3}
TRY IT! Find the unique elements in tuple (2, 4, 6, 5,2).
set_2 = set((2, 4, 6, 5, 2))
set_2
{2, 4, 5, 6}
TRY IT! Find the unique character in string “Banana”.
set('Banana')
{'B', 'a', 'n'}
We mentioned that sets support the mathematical operations like union, intersection, difference, and symmetric difference.
TRY IT! Get the union of set_1 and set_2.
print(set_1)
print(set_2)
{1, 2, 3}
{2, 4, 5, 6}
set_1.union(set_2)
{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}
TRY IT! Get the intersection of set_1 and set_2.
set_1.intersection(set_2)
{2}
TRY IT! Is set_1 a subset of {1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5}?
set_1.issubset({1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5})
True
< 2.4 Data Structure - Tuples | Contents | 2.6 Data Structure - Dictionaries >