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Inspired Python

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>>> d = {"favorite_food": "Pizza", "favorite_drink": "Coffee"}
>>> d.pop("favorite_food")
'Pizza'
# Missing elements raise KeyError, like you would expect.
>>> d.pop("favorite_music")
KeyError: 'favorite_music'
# ... but like the get() method you can specify a default.
>>> d.pop("favorite_language", "Python")
'Python'
>>> d['favorite_city'] = "London"
>>> d.popitem()
('favorite_city', 'London')

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Python Dictionary Tricks: Popping items

You can use the pop(key) method to remove (and return) the value of an item in a dictionary. It is very useful if you want to destructively retrieve an item from a dictionary and remove it at the same time. You can also use popitem() to return a (key, value) tuple of the last inserted entry in the dictionary.

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