Subtracting two lists in Python

Question

In Python, How can one subtract two non-unique, unordered lists? Say we have a = [0,1,2,1,0] and b = [0, 1, 1] I\'d like to do something like

Answer 1

You can try something like this:

class mylist(list):

    def __sub__(self, b):
        result = self[:]
        b = b[:]
        while b:
            try:
                result.remove(b.pop())
            except ValueError:
                raise Exception("Not all elements found during subtraction")
        return result


a = mylist([0, 1, 2, 1, 0] )
b = mylist([0, 1, 1])

>>> a - b
[2, 0]

You have to define what [1, 2, 3] - [5, 6] should output though, I guess you want [1, 2, 3] thats why I ignore the ValueError.

Edit: Now I see you wanted an exception if a does not contain all elements, added it instead of passing the ValueError.