Removing key/value pair in a dictionary is not working

Question

I am trying to delete some key/value pairs from a dictionary by defining a python function like this :

def removekey(d, key_list):
    r = d.copy()
    for h in key_list:
        r.pop(h, None)
        #del r[h]
    return r

keys_to_delete = (0,2)    
dict_a = {0: 277.8646380131756, 1: 237.68252216827375, 2: 223.04941947616766, 3: 9.058932480795093, 4: 175.74552982744078, 5: 4.834328204426816, 6: 180.5798580318676, 7: 45144.9645079669}

new_dict_a = removekey(dict_a,keys_to_delete)

Issue is that new_dict_a is equal to dict_a without removing the two pairs (0: value1) and (2: value3). What am I doing wrong?

Possible duplicate of [Understanding dict.copy() - shallow or deep?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3975376/understanding-dict-copy-shallow-or-deep) — mustaccio, Nov 21 '18 at 18:54

Sanchit Kumar · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-21T19:14:14.700

1

This will do for you:

def removekey(d, key_list):
    r = d.copy()
    for key in key_list:
        r.pop(key)
    return r

keys_to_delete = (0,2)
dict_a = dict_a = {0: 277.8646380131756, 1: 237.68252216827375, 2: 223.04941947616766,
                   3: 9.058932480795093, 4: 175.74552982744078, 5: 4.834328204426816,
                   6: 180.5798580318676, 7: 45144.9645079669}

new_dict_a = removekey(dict_a,keys_to_delete)
print(new_dict_a)
print(dict_a)

Output:

{1: 237.68252216827375, 3: 9.058932480795093, 4: 175.74552982744078, 5: 4.834328204426816, 6: 180.5798580318676, 7: 45144.9645079669}
{0: 277.8646380131756, 1: 237.68252216827375, 2: 223.04941947616766, 3: 9.058932480795093, 4: 175.74552982744078, 5: 4.834328204426816, 6: 180.5798580318676, 7: 45144.9645079669}

edited Nov 21 '18 at 19:14

answered Nov 21 '18 at 18:59

Sanchit Kumar

1,545
1
11
19

Well, but the items are float values not strings , I just put value1, value2 and so on to avoid reporting them. My dictionary is already defined like this : {0: 277.8646380131756, 1: 237.68252216827375, 2: 223.04941947616766, 3: 9.058932480795093, 4: 175.74552982744078, 5: 4.834328204426816, 6: 180.5798580318676, 7: 45144.9645079669} – Alex Nov 21 '18 at 19:04
It does not matter what your values are as you are using keys to remove the item, even if its float its should work. – Sanchit Kumar Nov 21 '18 at 19:09
The suggested code is same that I posted and It's not working. I get the same dictionary. – Alex Nov 21 '18 at 19:11
It's surely working for me and it should work for you as well. I edited the answer taking float values from the question. – Sanchit Kumar Nov 21 '18 at 19:15
You're right, It was my mistake in passing a wrong value as second parameter. Sorry again. Then, my code was already working. Can I delete this question? – Alex Nov 21 '18 at 19:20
It's completely up to you. I am happy to help :) – Sanchit Kumar Nov 21 '18 at 19:22
Ok, I am going to leave it here just in case someone has a similar question. – Alex Nov 21 '18 at 19:31

Removing key/value pair in a dictionary is not working

1 Answers1