What are the different Python Set operations

Python Set Operations

Set can be performed mathematical operation such as union, intersection, difference, and symmetric difference. Python provides the facility to carry out these operations with operators or methods. We describe these operations as follows.

Union of two Sets

The union of two sets is calculated by using the pipe (|) operator. The union of the two sets contains all the items that are present in both the sets.

Python Set

Consider the following example to calculate the union of two sets.

Example 1: using union | operator

Days1 = {"Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday", "Sunday"}    
Days2 = {"Friday","Saturday","Sunday"}    
print(Days1|Days2) #printing the union of the sets     

Output:

{'Friday', 'Sunday', 'Saturday', 'Tuesday', 'Wednesday', 'Monday', 'Thursday'}
Python also provides the union() method which can also be used to calculate the union of two sets. Consider the following example.

Example 2: using union() method

Days1 = {"Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday"}    
Days2 = {"Friday","Saturday","Sunday"}    
print(Days1.union(Days2)) #printing the union of the sets     

Output:

{'Friday', 'Monday', 'Tuesday', 'Thursday', 'Wednesday', 'Sunday', 'Saturday'}

Intersection of two sets

The intersection of two sets can be performed by the and & operator or the intersection() function . The intersection of the two sets is given as the set of the elements that common in both sets.

Python Set

Consider the following example.

Example 1: Using & operator

Days1 = {"Monday","Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday"}    
Days2 = {"Monday","Tuesday","Sunday", "Friday"}    
print(Days1&Days2) #prints the intersection of the two sets    

Output:

{'Monday', 'Tuesday'}
Example 2: Using intersection() method

set1 = {"Devansh","John", "David", "Martin"}    
set2 = {"Steve", "Milan", "David", "Martin"}    
print(set1.intersection(set2)) #prints the intersection of the two sets    

Output:

{'Martin', 'David'}
Example 3:

set1 = {1,2,3,4,5,6,7}  
set2 = {1,2,20,32,5,9}  
set3 = set1.intersection(set2)  
print(set3)  

Output:

{1,2,5}
The intersection_update() method
The intersection_update() method removes the items from the original set that are not present in both the sets (all the sets if more than one are specified).

The intersection_update() method is different from the intersection() method since it modifies the original set by removing the unwanted items, on the other hand, the intersection() method returns a new set.

Consider the following example.

a = {"Devansh", "bob", "castle"}    
b = {"castle", "dude", "emyway"}    
c = {"fuson", "gaurav", "castle"}    
    
a.intersection_update(b, c)    
    
print(a)    

Output:

{'castle'}

Difference between the two sets

The difference of two sets can be calculated by using the subtraction (-) operator or intersection() method. Suppose there are two sets A and B, and the difference is A-B that denotes the resulting set will be obtained that element of A, which is not present in the set B.

Python Set

Consider the following example.

Example 1 : Using subtraction ( - ) operator
Days1 = {“Monday”, “Tuesday”, “Wednesday”, “Thursday”}
Days2 = {“Monday”, “Tuesday”, “Sunday”}
print(Days1-Days2) #{“Wednesday”, “Thursday” will be printed}
Output:

{'Thursday', 'Wednesday'}
Example 2 : Using difference() method

Days1 = {"Monday",  "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday"}    
Days2 = {"Monday", "Tuesday", "Sunday"}    
print(Days1.difference(Days2)) # prints the difference of the two sets Days1 and Days2    

Output:

{'Thursday', 'Wednesday'}

Symmetric Difference of two sets

The symmetric difference of two sets is calculated by ^ operator or symmetric_difference() method. Symmetric difference of sets, it removes that element which is present in both sets. Consider the following example:

Python Set

Example - 1: Using ^ operator

a = {1,2,3,4,5,6}  
b = {1,2,9,8,10}  
c = a^b  
print(c)  

Output:

{3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10}
Example - 2: Using symmetric_difference() method

a = {1,2,3,4,5,6}  
b = {1,2,9,8,10}  
c = a.symmetric_difference(b)  
print(c)  

Output:

{3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10}

Set comparisons
Python allows us to use the comparison operators i.e., <, >, <=, >= , == with the sets by using which we can check whether a set is a subset, superset, or equivalent to other set. The boolean true or false is returned depending upon the items present inside the sets.

Consider the following example.

Days1 = {"Monday",  "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Thursday"}    
Days2 = {"Monday", "Tuesday"}    
Days3 = {"Monday", "Tuesday", "Friday"}    
    
#Days1 is the superset of Days2 hence it will print true.     
print (Days1>Days2)     
    
#prints false since Days1 is not the subset of Days2     
print (Days1<Days2)    
    
#prints false since Days2 and Days3 are not equivalent     
print (Days2 == Days3)    

Output:

True
False
False
FrozenSets

FrozenSets

The frozen sets are the immutable form of the normal sets, i.e., the items of the frozen set cannot be changed and therefore it can be used as a key in the dictionary.

The elements of the frozen set cannot be changed after the creation. We cannot change or append the content of the frozen sets by using the methods like add() or remove().

The frozenset() method is used to create the frozenset object. The iterable sequence is passed into this method which is converted into the frozen set as a return type of the method.

Consider the following example to create the frozen set.

Frozenset = frozenset([1,2,3,4,5])     
print(type(Frozenset))    
print("\nprinting the content of frozen set...")    
for i in Frozenset:    
    print(i);    
Frozenset.add(6) #gives an error since we cannot change the content of Frozenset after creation     

Output:

<class 'frozenset'>

printing the content of frozen set...
1
2
3
4
5
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "set.py", line 6, in <module>
    Frozenset.add(6) #gives an error since we can change the content of Frozenset after creation 
AttributeError: 'frozenset' object has no attribute 'add'

Frozenset for the dictionary

If we pass the dictionary as the sequence inside the frozenset() method, it will take only the keys from the dictionary and returns a frozenset that contains the key of the dictionary as its elements.

Consider the following example.

Dictionary = {"Name":"John", "Country":"USA", "ID":101}     
print(type(Dictionary))    
Frozenset = frozenset(Dictionary); #Frozenset will contain the keys of the dictionary    
print(type(Frozenset))    
for i in Frozenset:     
    print(i)    

Output:

<class 'dict'>
<class 'frozenset'>
Name
Country
ID

Set Programming Example
Example - 1: Write a program to remove the given number from the set.

my_set = {1,2,3,4,5,6,12,24}  
n = int(input("Enter the number you want to remove"))  
my_set.discard(n)  
print("After Removing:",my_set)  

Output:

Enter the number you want to remove:12
After Removing: {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 24}

Example - 2: Write a program to add multiple elements to the set.

set1 = set([1,2,4,"John","CS"])  
set1.update(["Apple","Mango","Grapes"])  
print(set1)  

Output:

{1, 2, 4, 'Apple', 'John', 'CS', 'Mango', 'Grapes'}

Example - 3: Write a program to find the union between two set.

set1 = set(["Peter","Joseph", 65,59,96])  
set2  = set(["Peter",1,2,"Joseph"])  
set3 = set1.union(set2)  
print(set3)  

Output:

{96, 65, 2, 'Joseph', 1, 'Peter', 59}
Example- 4: Write a program to find the intersection between two sets.

set1 = {23,44,56,67,90,45,"Javatpoint"}  
set2 = {13,23,56,76,"Sachin"}  
set3 = set1.intersection(set2)  
print(set3)  

Output:

{56, 23}
Example - 5: Write the program to add element to the frozenset.

set1 = {23,44,56,67,90,45,"Javatpoint"}  
set2 = {13,23,56,76,"Sachin"}  
set3 = set1.intersection(set2)  
print(set3)  

Output:

TypeError: 'frozenset' object does not support item assignment

Above code raised an error because frozensets are immutable and can’t be changed after creation.

Example - 6: Write the program to find the issuperset, issubset and superset.

set1 = set(["Peter","James","Camroon","Ricky","Donald"])  
set2 = set(["Camroon","Washington","Peter"])  
set3 = set(["Peter"])  
  
issubset = set1 >= set2  
print(issubset)  
issuperset = set1 <= set2  
print(issuperset)  
issubset = set3 <= set2  
print(issubset)  
issuperset = set2 >= set3  
print(issuperset)  

Output:

False
False
True
True