Delete items from a dictionary – Python

In this article, we would cover how to delete items from a dictionary. We have already covered Dictionaries in Python here. We store data in Dictionaries in the form of key:value pairs, which are called items. Comma (,) separates every item in a dictionary. Furthermore, a dictionary is enclosed in curly brackets {}.

We discuss four methods here to delete items from a dictionary –

1. popitem() method,
2. pop() method,
3. del keyword and,
4. clear() method.

We cover each of these methods in next section with relevant examples.

Delete items from a dictionary

Method I. popitem() method – It deletes last item from a dictionary. Let’s say we have a dictionary, d –

d=dict(name="abc", age=24, address="xyz, qwerty")

Here, the last key:value pair or item is address:”xyz, qwerty” will be deleted if we use popitem() method. To remove the last item from a dictionary, use the following code –

d.popitem()

It shows us the removed item –

('address', 'xyz, qwerty')

To check for the item –

print(d)

It would return with –

{'name': 'abc', 'age': 24}

We now turn our attention towards pop() method next.

Method II. If we want to delete an item using a specific key name. Then, we use pop() method. Continuing with the above example of dictionary, d –

d=dict(name="abc", age=24, address="xyz, qwerty")

To delete the item associated with key “name”, use the following code –

d.pop("name")

It would show us the value which it acted on.

'abc'

To see the outcome –

print(d)

It returns with –

{'age': 24, 'address': 'xyz, qwerty'}

Method III. del keyword – It can either be used to remove an item from a dictionary or we can delete the entire dictionary itself.

d=dict(name="abc", age=24, address="xyz, qwerty")

To delete the item with key – “age”

del d["age"]

Next, use print() method to check for the updated dictionary, d –

print(d)

It returns with –

{'name': 'abc', 'address': 'xyz, qwerty'}

But, if we want to delete the entire dictionary itself –

del d

If we use print() method now to display the contents of the dictionary it would throw NameError –

NameError: name 'd' is not defined.

Method IV. Lastly, we have clear() method. It clears the content of a dictionary. But, it won’t delete the dictionary itself.

d=dict(name="abc", age=24, address="xyz, qwerty")

To clear the contents of dictionary, d –

d.clear()

To check –

print(d)

It returns with an empty dictionary –

{}

In conclusion, we have covered how to delete items from a dictionary.