Removing sublists contained within a list

Question

I'm trying to remove all elements within a list except those that are integers. I am able to remove strings and booleans but I am unable to remove lists given the code below.

messy_list = ["a", 2, 3, 1, False, [1, 2, 3]]

for idx, val in enumerate(messy_list):
    if type(val) != int:
        messy_list.pop(idx)

print(messy_list)

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 29 '17 at 18:39

1

How about a functional approach?

>>> messy_list = ["a", 2, 3, 1, False, [1, 2, 3]]
>>> filter(lambda x: type(x)==int, messy_list)
[2, 3, 1]

answered Nov 29 '17 at 18:39

Pavel

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or `[x for x in messy_list if type(x) == int]` – progmatico Nov 29 '17 at 19:48

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 29 '17 at 18:44

The problem is not the sub-list, but the fact that you're modifying your original list while you're iterating it.

Iterate a copy instead:

messy_list = ["a", 2, 3, 1, False, [1, 2, 3]]

for val in list(messy_list):
    if type(val) != int:
        messy_list.remove(val)

print(messy_list) # [2, 3, 1]

Removing sublists contained within a list

2 Answers2