Get difference between two lists

Question

I have two lists in Python, like these:

temp1 = [\'One\', \'Two\', \'Three\', \'Four\']
temp2 = [\'One\', \'Two\']

I need to create a third

Answer 1

if you want something more like a changeset... could use Counter

from collections import Counter

def diff(a, b):
  """ more verbose than needs to be, for clarity """
  ca, cb = Counter(a), Counter(b)
  to_add = cb - ca
  to_remove = ca - cb
  changes = Counter(to_add)
  changes.subtract(to_remove)
  return changes

lista = ['one', 'three', 'four', 'four', 'one']
listb = ['one', 'two', 'three']

In [127]: diff(lista, listb)
Out[127]: Counter({'two': 1, 'one': -1, 'four': -2})
# in order to go from lista to list b, you need to add a "two", remove a "one", and remove two "four"s

In [128]: diff(listb, lista)
Out[128]: Counter({'four': 2, 'one': 1, 'two': -1})
# in order to go from listb to lista, you must add two "four"s, add a "one", and remove a "two"