Confused over Lists

[Jonathan Hogg]

On 2/8/2002 14:56, in article
1028296609.5721.0.nnrp-12.c1c3e11b at news.demon.co.uk, "Paul Brian"
<paul1brian at yahoo.com> wrote:

> the following I thought should work :-
> 
> demoList = [1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
> for num in demoList:
>   if num == 1:
>       demoList.remove(num)
> print demoList
> 
> but I get
>>>> [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
> 
> 
> There appears to be a magic counter that keeps track of what index it has
> already iteratered over in the list.
> When the first "1" is encountered (index 0) it removes it, and shifts the
> next "1" to index 0.
> But the magic counter thinks it has already visited index 0 and so "blips"
> over the second 1, thus not removing that "1" from the list.

Modifying a list that you're looping over has undefined results. Better
would be:

>>> demoList = [1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
>>> 
>>> newList = [num for num in demoList if num <> 1]
>>> newList
[2, 3, 4, 5]
>>> 

or:

>>> newList = filter( lambda num: num <> 1, demoList )
>>> newList
[2, 3, 4, 5]
>>> 

Jonathan