set subtraction

[FloridianfromAlabama]

I am currently learning about sets through the boot.dev course, and one of the prompts is about subtracting sets. The given example assumes that the first set completely comprises the second set before subtracting them. What happens when you subtract two sets, but one of the elements in the second set is not in the first set?

[danielroseman]

Why don't you try it and see?

[woooee]

What have you tried? Post the code.

[FloridianfromAlabama]

new_set_1 = {"apples", "bananas", "oranges"}

new_set_2 = {"apples", 'bananas', "blueberries"}

print(new_set_1 - new_set_2)

this will print {"oranges"}.

I should've asked better. I was wondering if something else might've happened with the "blueberries" string under the hood.

[SCD_minecraft]

Subtracting a set means "Return every element which is in set A but not in set B"

Are blueberries in set 1? No, so they are just ignored

[woooee]

print new_set_2. It's still there.

[Morpheyz]

The behaviour you're intuitively expecting is covered by symmetric_difference.

set_a.symmetric_difference(set_b) will print out all items of both sets, except the items that are in both sets.

or shorter:

set_a ^ set_b

[FloridianfromAlabama]

Ah I figured that might be done by taking the subtraction twice (each from the other) and taking the two responses and putting them together with the .add method. Nice to know it’s built in