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Discussion on: Intersection, union and difference of Sets in Python.

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sur0g profile image
sur0g • Edited

Actually the bitwise operations is completely applicable to the sets (i.e. the wiki XOR article contains Venn's diagrams). That's happening because of the bitwise operations are applied not to the values but to their presence in the set.

cats = {...}
animals = {...}
dogs = {...}
cat_dog_nickelodeon = cats & dogs  # intuitive
other_animals = animals - (cats | dogs)  # beautiful
other_animals = animals.difference(cats.union(dogs))  # much more ugly
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rhymes profile image
rhymes

That's happening because of the bitwise operations are applied not to the values but to their presence in the set.

Thanks for reminding me about that. I still prefer the explicit version in "day to day" code though, especially because they can be used dynamically if needed!