How To Delete a Set of Keys From a Python Dictionary

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

In our last video on how to delete a key from a python dictionary, we illustrated where one key could be removed easily.

But what if you wanted to remove one or more keys?

In the below code, we have created an empty dictionary. This will be populated by values in “dictionary_remove”.

Option1 uses the pop method :

1. It creates an empty dictionary and then populates it with keys and values.
2. Then it uses a loop to iterate over the list dictionary_remove.
3. Then it looks at those and uses the pop method to find those values in the empty_dict1, and removes them

As a result, the following is what is returned:

Before:

{‘Key2’: ‘2’, ‘Key1’: ‘1’, ‘Key3’: ‘3’, ‘Key4’: ‘4’, ‘Key5’: ‘5’, ‘Key6’: ‘6’}

After:

{‘Key2’: ‘2’, ‘Key1’: ‘1’, ‘Key3’: ‘3’, ‘Key4’: ‘4’}

Option 2 uses the Del method :

In this second scenario, we do the following steps:

1. We populate the dictionary_remove with two values, that are from the result of scenario 1 above.
2. Then it uses a loop to iterate over the list dictionary_remove.
3. Then it looks at those and uses the del method to find those values in the empty_dict1, and removes them

As a result, the following is what is returned:

Before:

{‘Key2’: ‘2’, ‘Key1’: ‘1’, ‘Key3’: ‘3’, ‘Key4’: ‘4’}

After:

{‘Key2’: ‘2’, ‘Key1’: ‘1’}

Slide 8
#How to delete more than one key from a dictionary
#1. Create a list to lookup against
empty_dict1 = {}

empty_dict1['Key2'] = '2'
empty_dict1['Key1'] = '1'
empty_dict1['Key3'] = '3'
empty_dict1['Key4'] = '4'
empty_dict1['Key5'] = '5'
empty_dict1['Key6'] = '6'

print(empty_dict1)

dictionary_remove = ["Key5","Key6"] # Lookup list

#1. Use the pop method

for key in dictionary_remove:
  empty_dict1.pop(key)
print(empty_dict1)

#2 Use the del method
dictionary_remove = ["Key3","Key4"]
for key in dictionary_remove:
  del empty_dict1[key]
print(empty_dict1)

We hope you enjoyed this, we have plenty of videos that you can look at to improve your knowledge of Python here: Data Analytics Ireland Youtube

Click here if you want to know how would you change the name of a key in a python dictionary as an alternative!