How to remove an element from a list by index

Question

How do I remove an element from a list by index in Python?

I found the list.remove method, but say I want to remove the last element, how do I do this?

Answer 1

This depends on what you want to do.

If you want to return the element you removed, use pop():

>>> l = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
>>> l.pop(2)
3
>>> l
[1, 2, 4, 5]

However, if you just want to delete an element, use del:

>>> l = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
>>> del l[2]
>>> l
[1, 2, 4, 5]

Additionally, del allows you to use slices (e.g. del[2:]).