Remove all occurrences of a value from a list?

Question

In Python remove() will remove the first occurrence of value in a list.

How to remove all occurrences of a value from a list?

This is w

Answer 1

About the speed!

import time
s_time = time.time()

print 'start'
a = range(100000000)
del a[:]
print 'finished in %0.2f' % (time.time() - s_time)
# start
# finished in 3.25

s_time = time.time()
print 'start'
a = range(100000000)
a = []
print 'finished in %0.2f' % (time.time() - s_time)
# start
# finished in 2.11

Answer 2

Numpy approach and timings against a list/array with 1.000.000 elements:

Timings:

In [10]: a.shape
Out[10]: (1000000,)

In [13]: len(lst)
Out[13]: 1000000

In [18]: %timeit a[a != 2]
100 loops, best of 3: 2.94 ms per loop

In [19]: %timeit [x for x in lst if x != 2]
10 loops, best of 3: 79.7 ms per loop

Conclusion: numpy is 27 times faster (on my notebook) compared to list comprehension approach

PS if you want to convert your regular Python list lst to numpy array:

arr = np.array(lst)

Setup:

import numpy as np
a = np.random.randint(0, 1000, 10**6)

In [10]: a.shape
Out[10]: (1000000,)

In [12]: lst = a.tolist()

In [13]: len(lst)
Out[13]: 1000000

Check:

In [14]: a[a != 2].shape
Out[14]: (998949,)

In [15]: len([x for x in lst if x != 2])
Out[15]: 998949

Answer 3

If you didn't have built-in filter or didn't want to use extra space and you need a linear solution...

def remove_all(A, v):
    k = 0
    n = len(A)
    for i in range(n):
        if A[i] !=  v:
            A[k] = A[i]
            k += 1

    A = A[:k]

Answer 4

You can use slice assignment if the original list must be modified, while still using an efficient list comprehension (or generator expression).

>>> x = [1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 2, 3]
>>> x[:] = (value for value in x if value != 2)
>>> x
[1, 3, 4, 3]

Answer 5

No one has posted an optimal answer for time and space complexity, so I thought I would give it a shot. Here is a solution that removes all occurrences of a specific value without creating a new array and at an efficient time complexity. The drawback is that the elements do not maintain order.

Time complexity: O(n)
Additional space complexity: O(1)

def main():
    test_case([1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 2, 3], 2)     # [1, 3, 3, 4]
    test_case([3, 3, 3], 3)                 # []
    test_case([1, 1, 1], 3)                 # [1, 1, 1]


def test_case(test_val, remove_val):
    remove_element_in_place(test_val, remove_val)
    print(test_val)


def remove_element_in_place(my_list, remove_value):
    length_my_list = len(my_list)
    swap_idx = length_my_list - 1

    for idx in range(length_my_list - 1, -1, -1):
        if my_list[idx] == remove_value:
            my_list[idx], my_list[swap_idx] = my_list[swap_idx], my_list[idx]
            swap_idx -= 1

    for pop_idx in range(length_my_list - swap_idx - 1):
        my_list.pop() # O(1) operation


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()