Sets
Lists are extremely versatile tools that suit most container object applications. But they are not useful when we want to ensure objects in the list are unique. For example, a song library may contain many songs by the same artist. If we want to sort through the library and create a list of all the artists, we would have to check the list to see if we've added the artist already, before we add them again.
This is where sets come in. Sets come from mathematics, where they represent an unordered group of (usually) unique numbers. We can add a number to a set five times, but it will show up in the set only once.
In Python, sets can hold any hashable object, not just numbers. Hashable objects are the same objects that can be used as keys in dictionaries; ...
Get Python: Master the Art of Design Patterns now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
