The set in python can be defined as the unordered collection of various items enclosed within the curly braces. The elements of the set can not be duplicate. The elements of the python set must be immutable.
Unlike other collections in python, there is no index attached to the elements of the set, i.e., we cannot directly access any element of the set by the index. However, we can print them all together or we can get the list of elements by looping through the set.
Creating a set
The set can be created by enclosing the comma separated items with the curly braces. Python also provides the set method which can be used to create the set by the passed sequence.
Example 1: using curly braces
Days = {"Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday", "Saturday", "Sunday"}
print(Days)
print(type(Days))
print("looping through the set elements ... ")
for i in Days:
print(i)
Output:
{'Friday', 'Tuesday', 'Monday', 'Saturday', 'Thursday', 'Sunday', 'Wednesday'}
<class 'set'>
looping through the set elements ...
Friday
Tuesday
Monday
Saturday
Thursday
Sunday
Wednesday
Example 2: using set() method
Days = set(["Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday", "Friday", "Saturday", "Sunday"])
print(Days)
print(type(Days))
print("looping through the set elements ... ")
for i in Days:
print(i)
Output:
{'Friday', 'Wednesday', 'Thursday', 'Saturday', 'Monday', 'Tuesday', 'Sunday'}
<class 'set'>
looping through the set elements ...
Friday
Wednesday
Thursday
Saturday
Monday
Tuesday
Sunday
Python Set operations
In the previous example, we have discussed about how the set is created in python. However, we can perform various mathematical operations on python sets like union, intersection, difference, etc.
Adding items to the set
Python provides the add() method which can be used to add some particular item to the set. Consider the following example.
Example:
Months = set(["January","February", "March", "April", "May", "June"])
print("\nprinting the original set ... ")
print(Months)
print("\nAdding other months to the set...");
Months.add("July");
Months.add("August");
print("\nPrinting the modified set...");
print(Months)
print("\nlooping through the set elements ... ")
for i in Months:
print(i)
Output:
printing the original set ...
{'February', 'May', 'April', 'March', 'June', 'January'}
Adding other months to the set...
Printing the modified set...
{'February', 'July', 'May', 'April', 'March', 'August', 'June', 'January'}
looping through the set elements ...
February
July
May
April
March
August
June
January
