Difference Between Del and Remove() on Lists in Python?

Let us understand what is Del and Remove() in a Python List before moving towards the difference.

Del Keyword in Python List

The del keyword in Python is used to remove an element or multiple elements from a List. We can also remove all the elements i.e. delete the entire list.

Example

Delete an element from a Python List using the del keyword

#Create a List
myList = ["Toyota", "Benz", "Audi", "Bentley"]
print("List = ",myList)

# Delete a single element
del myList[2]

print("Updated List = \n",myList)

Output

List =  ['Toyota', 'Benz', 'Audi', 'Bentley']
Updated List = 
 ['Toyota', 'Benz', 'Bentley']

Example

Delete multiple elements from a Python List using the del keyword

# Create a List
myList = ["Toyota", "Benz", "Audi", "Bentley", "Hyundai", "Honda", "Tata"]

print("List = ",myList)

# Delete multiple element
del myList[2:5]
print("Updated List = \n",myList)

Output

List =  ['Toyota', 'Benz', 'Audi', 'Bentley', 'Hyundai', 'Honda', 'Tata']
Updated List = ['Toyota', 'Benz', 'Honda', 'Tata']

Example

Delete all the elements from a Python List using the del keyword

# Create a List
myList = ["Toyota", "Benz", "Audi", "Bentley"]
print("List = ",myList)

# Deletes the entire List
del myList

# The above deleted the List completely and all its elements

Output

List =  ['Toyota', 'Benz', 'Audi', 'Bentley']

Remove() method in Python List

The remove() built-in method in Python is used to remove elements from a List.

Example

Remove an element from a Python using the remove() method

# Create a List
myList = ["Toyota", "Benz", "Audi", "Bentley"]
print("List = ",myList)

# Remove a single element
myList.remove("Benz")

# Display the updated List
print("Updated List = \n",myList)

Output

List =  ['Toyota', 'Benz', 'Audi', 'Bentley']
Updated List = 
 ['Toyota', 'Audi', 'Bentley']

Del vs Remove()

Let us now see the difference between del and remove() in Python −

del in Python remove()

The del is a keyword in Python. The remove(0) is a built-in method in Python.
An indexError is thrown if the index doesn’t exist in the Python list. The valueError is thrown if the value doesn’t exist in the Python list.
The del works on index. The remove() works on value.
The del deletes an element at a specified index number. It removes the first matching value from the Python List.
The del is simple deletion. The remove() searches the list to find the item.

Updated on: 15-Sep-2022

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