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Python Python Collections (2016, retired 2019) Lists Removing items from a list

Flore W
Flore W
4,744 Points

Cleaning messy list with a function - everything works except for the last step, help please!

Hi all, I tried to create a function that would clean any messy lists for non integers. My function works until the last item in the loop. I hope you can see my code in lists.py (please tell me otherwise how I can attach my code to this question), and here below is the result from the console at each step:

[1, 'a', 2, 3, False, [1,2,3], [1,3,2], True] #that's my print(messy_list)

['a', False, [1,2,3], [1,3,2], True] #that's my blist, or the list of non-integers to remove

[1, 2, 3,False, [1,2,3], [1,3,2], True] #first iteration of my for loop -> removed the 'a', hurray

[1, 2, 3, [1,2,3], [1,3,2], True] #second iteration of my for loop -> removed the False, hurray

[1, 2, 3, [1,3,2], True] #third iteration of my for loop -> removed the [1,2,3] list, hurray

[1, 2, 3, True] #fourth iteration of my for loop -> removed the True, hurray

[2, 3, True] #fifth iteration of my for loop and last -> WHAT HAPPENED? Why did it remove my 1 and not the True?

lists.py
messy_list = ["a", 2, 3, 1, False, [1, 2, 3]]

# Your code goes below here
messy_list.insert(0,messy_list.pop(3))

def isboolean(item):
    if type(item) in (float,int):
        return item
    else:
        None

def remove_notint(alist):
    blist = []
    for item in alist:
        try:
            int(isboolean(item))
        except TypeError:
            blist.append(item)

    for item in blist:    
        try:
            alist.remove(item)
            print(alist)
        except ValueError:
            pass

    return alist


print(messy_list)
remove_notint(messy_list)

2 Answers

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,275 Points

This challenge doesn't require writing any functions. Just as you passed task 1 with a single line, the challenge can be completed with a few additional lines of code.

The instructions suggest you remove each item with either a "del" statement or the ".remove()" method.

Flore W
Flore W
4,744 Points

Hi Steven, thanks, yes I know that, but I wanted to practice a bit more and write a function that would make any messy list clean. Actually I passed the challenge with my code above but it is wrong on the console... so I'd really want to know what's wrong with it. Any help is welcome!

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,275 Points

Ok, well, "remove" treats "True" the same as "1" , and "False" the same as "0", just as ordinary comparisons do:

>>> print(True == 1)
True
>>> print(False == 0)
True

So when you `alist.remove(True)", it finds the 1 first and removes that.

You could make your cleaner handle this by just returning the items that are of the desired type:

def remove_notint(alist):
    return [item for item in alist if type(item) == int]
Flore W
Flore W
4,744 Points

Oh wow, that's such a short and elegant way to put it ! thanks Steven, it is particularly good to know that remove treats True and False as 1 and 0.

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,275 Points

Love those list comprehensions (there's a workshop on them)!

Happy coding!