On Fri, 29 Apr 2022 at 07:44, Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> wrote:
Especially not when that solution is easily mistaken for something else:
d -= 1 # Are we subtracting 1, or deleting key 1?
IMO it would make more sense to spell it as subtraction of two similar types: d -= {1} # supporting sets would be nice d -= {1: ...} If subtraction on dicts is ever supported, I doubt it would allow subtracting one key from the dict - it would make much more sense to subtract another dictionary. But for the single elimination case, pop() is perfect for the job. Oh, and since we're making evidence-free predictions about performance, I'm going to put in my guesses too: "if key in mydict: del mydict[key]" will be slower than pop(), and the try/except could be about comparable, but could be slightly slower or faster. (If we were placing bets, I'd bet on pop() being the fastest of the three overall, but that's a weaker prediction.) Now we just need someone to make the ultimate benchmark so we can find out :) ChrisA