Develop Reference

How do I remove a JSON element [duplicate]

I want to remove a key from a dictionary if it is present. I currently use this code:
if 'key' in my_dict:
del my_dict['key']
Without the if statement, the code will raise KeyError if the key is not present. How can I handle this more simply?
See Delete an element from a dictionary for more general approaches to the problem of removing a key from a dict (including ones which produce a modified copy).

To delete a key regardless of whether it is in the dictionary, use the two-argument form of dict.pop():
my_dict.pop('key', None)
This will return my_dict[key] if key exists in the dictionary, and None otherwise. If the second parameter is not specified (i.e. my_dict.pop('key')) and key does not exist, a KeyError is raised.
To delete a key that is guaranteed to exist, you can also use
del my_dict['key']
This will raise a KeyError if the key is not in the dictionary.

Specifically to answer "is there a one line way of doing this?"
if 'key' in my_dict: del my_dict['key']
...well, you asked ;-)
You should consider, though, that this way of deleting an object from a dict is not atomic—it is possible that 'key' may be in my_dict during the if statement, but may be deleted before del is executed, in which case del will fail with a KeyError. Given this, it would be safest to either use dict.pop or something along the lines of
try:
del my_dict['key']
except KeyError:
pass
which, of course, is definitely not a one-liner.

It took me some time to figure out what exactly my_dict.pop("key", None) is doing. So I'll add this as an answer to save others googling time:
pop(key[, default])
If key is in the dictionary, remove it and return its value, else
return default. If default is not given and key is not in the
dictionary, a KeyError is raised.
Documentation

del my_dict[key] is slightly faster than my_dict.pop(key) for removing a key from a dictionary when the key exists
>>> import timeit
>>> setup = "d = {i: i for i in range(100000)}"
>>> timeit.timeit("del d[3]", setup=setup, number=1)
1.79e-06
>>> timeit.timeit("d.pop(3)", setup=setup, number=1)
2.09e-06
>>> timeit.timeit("d2 = {key: val for key, val in d.items() if key != 3}", setup=setup, number=1)
0.00786
But when the key doesn't exist if key in my_dict: del my_dict[key] is slightly faster than my_dict.pop(key, None). Both are at least three times faster than del in a try/except statement:
>>> timeit.timeit("if 'missing key' in d: del d['missing key']", setup=setup)
0.0229
>>> timeit.timeit("d.pop('missing key', None)", setup=setup)
0.0426
>>> try_except = """
... try:
... del d['missing key']
... except KeyError:
... pass
... """
>>> timeit.timeit(try_except, setup=setup)
0.133

If you need to remove a lot of keys from a dictionary in one line of code, I think using map() is quite succinct and Pythonic readable:
myDict = {'a':1,'b':2,'c':3,'d':4}
map(myDict.pop, ['a','c']) # The list of keys to remove
>>> myDict
{'b': 2, 'd': 4}
And if you need to catch errors where you pop a value that isn't in the dictionary, use lambda inside map() like this:
map(lambda x: myDict.pop(x,None), ['a', 'c', 'e'])
[1, 3, None] # pop returns
>>> myDict
{'b': 2, 'd': 4}
or in python3, you must use a list comprehension instead:
[myDict.pop(x, None) for x in ['a', 'c', 'e']]
It works. And 'e' did not cause an error, even though myDict did not have an 'e' key.

You can use a dictionary comprehension to create a new dictionary with that key removed:
>>> my_dict = {k: v for k, v in my_dict.items() if k != 'key'}
You can delete by conditions. No error if key doesn't exist.

You can use exception handling if you want to be very verbose:
try:
del dict[key]
except KeyError: pass
This is slower, however, than the pop() method, if the key doesn't exist.
my_dict.pop('key', None)
It won't matter for a few keys, but if you're doing this repeatedly, then the latter method is a better bet.
The fastest approach is this:
if 'key' in dict:
del myDict['key']
But this method is dangerous because if 'key' is removed in between the two lines, a KeyError will be raised.

We can delete a key from a Python dictionary by the some of the following approaches.
Using the del keyword; it's almost the same approach like you did though -
myDict = {'one': 100, 'two': 200, 'three': 300 }
print(myDict) # {'one': 100, 'two': 200, 'three': 300}
if myDict.get('one') : del myDict['one']
print(myDict) # {'two': 200, 'three': 300}
Or
We can do like the following:
But one should keep in mind that, in this process actually it won't delete any key from the dictionary rather than making a specific key excluded from that dictionary. In addition, I observed that it returned a dictionary which was not ordered the same as myDict.
myDict = {'one': 100, 'two': 200, 'three': 300, 'four': 400, 'five': 500}
{key:value for key, value in myDict.items() if key != 'one'}
If we run it in the shell, it'll execute something like {'five': 500, 'four': 400, 'three': 300, 'two': 200} - notice that it's not the same ordered as myDict. Again if we try to print myDict, then we can see all keys including which we excluded from the dictionary by this approach. However, we can make a new dictionary by assigning the following statement into a variable:
var = {key:value for key, value in myDict.items() if key != 'one'}
Now if we try to print it, then it'll follow the parent order:
print(var) # {'two': 200, 'three': 300, 'four': 400, 'five': 500}
Or
Using the pop() method.
myDict = {'one': 100, 'two': 200, 'three': 300}
print(myDict)
if myDict.get('one') : myDict.pop('one')
print(myDict) # {'two': 200, 'three': 300}
The difference between del and pop is that, using pop() method, we can actually store the key's value if needed, like the following:
myDict = {'one': 100, 'two': 200, 'three': 300}
if myDict.get('one') : var = myDict.pop('one')
print(myDict) # {'two': 200, 'three': 300}
print(var) # 100
Fork this gist for future reference, if you find this useful.

I prefer the immutable version
foo = {
1:1,
2:2,
3:3
}
removeKeys = [1,2]
def woKeys(dct, keyIter):
return {
k:v
for k,v in dct.items() if k not in keyIter
}
>>> print(woKeys(foo, removeKeys))
{3: 3}
>>> print(foo)
{1: 1, 2: 2, 3: 3}

Another way is by using items() + dict comprehension.
items() coupled with dict comprehension can also help us achieve the task of key-value pair deletion, but it has the drawback of not being an in place dict technique. Actually a new dict if created except for the key we don’t wish to include.
test_dict = {"sai" : 22, "kiran" : 21, "vinod" : 21, "sangam" : 21}
# Printing dictionary before removal
print ("dictionary before performing remove is : " + str(test_dict))
# Using items() + dict comprehension to remove a dict. pair
# removes vinod
new_dict = {key:val for key, val in test_dict.items() if key != 'vinod'}
# Printing dictionary after removal
print ("dictionary after remove is : " + str(new_dict))
Output:
dictionary before performing remove is : {'sai': 22, 'kiran': 21, 'vinod': 21, 'sangam': 21}
dictionary after remove is : {'sai': 22, 'kiran': 21, 'sangam': 21}

removing a key from dict in Python [duplicate]

I want to remove a key from a dictionary if it is present. I currently use this code:
if 'key' in my_dict:
del my_dict['key']
Without the if statement, the code will raise KeyError if the key is not present. How can I handle this more simply?
See Delete an element from a dictionary for more general approaches to the problem of removing a key from a dict (including ones which produce a modified copy).

To delete a key regardless of whether it is in the dictionary, use the two-argument form of dict.pop():
my_dict.pop('key', None)
This will return my_dict[key] if key exists in the dictionary, and None otherwise. If the second parameter is not specified (i.e. my_dict.pop('key')) and key does not exist, a KeyError is raised.
To delete a key that is guaranteed to exist, you can also use
del my_dict['key']
This will raise a KeyError if the key is not in the dictionary.

Specifically to answer "is there a one line way of doing this?"
if 'key' in my_dict: del my_dict['key']
...well, you asked ;-)
You should consider, though, that this way of deleting an object from a dict is not atomic—it is possible that 'key' may be in my_dict during the if statement, but may be deleted before del is executed, in which case del will fail with a KeyError. Given this, it would be safest to either use dict.pop or something along the lines of
try:
del my_dict['key']
except KeyError:
pass
which, of course, is definitely not a one-liner.

It took me some time to figure out what exactly my_dict.pop("key", None) is doing. So I'll add this as an answer to save others googling time:
pop(key[, default])
If key is in the dictionary, remove it and return its value, else
return default. If default is not given and key is not in the
dictionary, a KeyError is raised.
Documentation

del my_dict[key] is slightly faster than my_dict.pop(key) for removing a key from a dictionary when the key exists
>>> import timeit
>>> setup = "d = {i: i for i in range(100000)}"
>>> timeit.timeit("del d[3]", setup=setup, number=1)
1.79e-06
>>> timeit.timeit("d.pop(3)", setup=setup, number=1)
2.09e-06
>>> timeit.timeit("d2 = {key: val for key, val in d.items() if key != 3}", setup=setup, number=1)
0.00786
But when the key doesn't exist if key in my_dict: del my_dict[key] is slightly faster than my_dict.pop(key, None). Both are at least three times faster than del in a try/except statement:
>>> timeit.timeit("if 'missing key' in d: del d['missing key']", setup=setup)
0.0229
>>> timeit.timeit("d.pop('missing key', None)", setup=setup)
0.0426
>>> try_except = """
... try:
... del d['missing key']
... except KeyError:
... pass
... """
>>> timeit.timeit(try_except, setup=setup)
0.133

If you need to remove a lot of keys from a dictionary in one line of code, I think using map() is quite succinct and Pythonic readable:
myDict = {'a':1,'b':2,'c':3,'d':4}
map(myDict.pop, ['a','c']) # The list of keys to remove
>>> myDict
{'b': 2, 'd': 4}
And if you need to catch errors where you pop a value that isn't in the dictionary, use lambda inside map() like this:
map(lambda x: myDict.pop(x,None), ['a', 'c', 'e'])
[1, 3, None] # pop returns
>>> myDict
{'b': 2, 'd': 4}
or in python3, you must use a list comprehension instead:
[myDict.pop(x, None) for x in ['a', 'c', 'e']]
It works. And 'e' did not cause an error, even though myDict did not have an 'e' key.

You can use a dictionary comprehension to create a new dictionary with that key removed:
>>> my_dict = {k: v for k, v in my_dict.items() if k != 'key'}
You can delete by conditions. No error if key doesn't exist.

You can use exception handling if you want to be very verbose:
try:
del dict[key]
except KeyError: pass
This is slower, however, than the pop() method, if the key doesn't exist.
my_dict.pop('key', None)
It won't matter for a few keys, but if you're doing this repeatedly, then the latter method is a better bet.
The fastest approach is this:
if 'key' in dict:
del myDict['key']
But this method is dangerous because if 'key' is removed in between the two lines, a KeyError will be raised.

We can delete a key from a Python dictionary by the some of the following approaches.
Using the del keyword; it's almost the same approach like you did though -
myDict = {'one': 100, 'two': 200, 'three': 300 }
print(myDict) # {'one': 100, 'two': 200, 'three': 300}
if myDict.get('one') : del myDict['one']
print(myDict) # {'two': 200, 'three': 300}
Or
We can do like the following:
But one should keep in mind that, in this process actually it won't delete any key from the dictionary rather than making a specific key excluded from that dictionary. In addition, I observed that it returned a dictionary which was not ordered the same as myDict.
myDict = {'one': 100, 'two': 200, 'three': 300, 'four': 400, 'five': 500}
{key:value for key, value in myDict.items() if key != 'one'}
If we run it in the shell, it'll execute something like {'five': 500, 'four': 400, 'three': 300, 'two': 200} - notice that it's not the same ordered as myDict. Again if we try to print myDict, then we can see all keys including which we excluded from the dictionary by this approach. However, we can make a new dictionary by assigning the following statement into a variable:
var = {key:value for key, value in myDict.items() if key != 'one'}
Now if we try to print it, then it'll follow the parent order:
print(var) # {'two': 200, 'three': 300, 'four': 400, 'five': 500}
Or
Using the pop() method.
myDict = {'one': 100, 'two': 200, 'three': 300}
print(myDict)
if myDict.get('one') : myDict.pop('one')
print(myDict) # {'two': 200, 'three': 300}
The difference between del and pop is that, using pop() method, we can actually store the key's value if needed, like the following:
myDict = {'one': 100, 'two': 200, 'three': 300}
if myDict.get('one') : var = myDict.pop('one')
print(myDict) # {'two': 200, 'three': 300}
print(var) # 100
Fork this gist for future reference, if you find this useful.

I prefer the immutable version
foo = {
1:1,
2:2,
3:3
}
removeKeys = [1,2]
def woKeys(dct, keyIter):
return {
k:v
for k,v in dct.items() if k not in keyIter
}
>>> print(woKeys(foo, removeKeys))
{3: 3}
>>> print(foo)
{1: 1, 2: 2, 3: 3}

Another way is by using items() + dict comprehension.
items() coupled with dict comprehension can also help us achieve the task of key-value pair deletion, but it has the drawback of not being an in place dict technique. Actually a new dict if created except for the key we don’t wish to include.
test_dict = {"sai" : 22, "kiran" : 21, "vinod" : 21, "sangam" : 21}
# Printing dictionary before removal
print ("dictionary before performing remove is : " + str(test_dict))
# Using items() + dict comprehension to remove a dict. pair
# removes vinod
new_dict = {key:val for key, val in test_dict.items() if key != 'vinod'}
# Printing dictionary after removal
print ("dictionary after remove is : " + str(new_dict))
Output:
dictionary before performing remove is : {'sai': 22, 'kiran': 21, 'vinod': 21, 'sangam': 21}
dictionary after remove is : {'sai': 22, 'kiran': 21, 'sangam': 21}

Deleting dictionary keys from a provided list in Python [duplicate]

I know how to remove an entry, 'key' from my dictionary d, safely. You do:
if d.has_key('key'):
del d['key']
However, I need to remove multiple entries from a dictionary safely. I was thinking of defining the entries in a tuple as I will need to do this more than once.
entities_to_remove = ('a', 'b', 'c')
for x in entities_to_remove:
if x in d:
del d[x]
However, I was wondering if there is a smarter way to do this?

Using dict.pop:
d = {'some': 'data'}
entries_to_remove = ('any', 'iterable')
for k in entries_to_remove:
d.pop(k, None)

Using Dict Comprehensions
final_dict = {key: value for key, value in d if key not in [key1, key2]}
where key1 and key2 are to be removed.
In the example below, keys "b" and "c" are to be removed & it's kept in a keys list.
>>> a
{'a': 1, 'c': 3, 'b': 2, 'd': 4}
>>> keys = ["b", "c"]
>>> print {key: a[key] for key in a if key not in keys}
{'a': 1, 'd': 4}
>>>

Why not like this:
entries = ('a', 'b', 'c')
the_dict = {'b': 'foo'}
def entries_to_remove(entries, the_dict):
for key in entries:
if key in the_dict:
del the_dict[key]
A more compact version was provided by mattbornski using dict.pop()

a solution is using map and filter functions
python 2
d={"a":1,"b":2,"c":3}
l=("a","b","d")
map(d.__delitem__, filter(d.__contains__,l))
print(d)
python 3
d={"a":1,"b":2,"c":3}
l=("a","b","d")
list(map(d.__delitem__, filter(d.__contains__,l)))
print(d)
you get:
{'c': 3}

If you also need to retrieve the values for the keys you are removing, this would be a pretty good way to do it:
values_removed = [d.pop(k, None) for k in entities_to_remove]
You could of course still do this just for the removal of the keys from d, but you would be unnecessarily creating the list of values with the list comprehension. It is also a little unclear to use a list comprehension just for the function's side effect.

Found a solution with pop and map
d = {'a': 'valueA', 'b': 'valueB', 'c': 'valueC', 'd': 'valueD'}
keys = ['a', 'b', 'c']
list(map(d.pop, keys))
print(d)
The output of this:
{'d': 'valueD'}
I have answered this question so late just because I think it will help in the future if anyone searches the same. And this might help.
Update
The above code will throw an error if a key does not exist in the dict.
DICTIONARY = {'a': 'valueA', 'b': 'valueB', 'c': 'valueC', 'd': 'valueD'}
keys = ['a', 'l', 'c']
def remove_key(key):
DICTIONARY.pop(key, None)
list(map(remove_key, keys))
print(DICTIONARY)
output:
DICTIONARY = {'b': 'valueB', 'd': 'valueD'}

Some timing tests for cpython 3 shows that a simple for loop is the fastest way, and it's quite readable. Adding in a function doesn't cause much overhead either:
timeit results (10k iterations):
all(x.pop(v) for v in r) # 0.85
all(map(x.pop, r)) # 0.60
list(map(x.pop, r)) # 0.70
all(map(x.__delitem__, r)) # 0.44
del_all(x, r) # 0.40
<inline for loop>(x, r) # 0.35
def del_all(mapping, to_remove):
"""Remove list of elements from mapping."""
for key in to_remove:
del mapping[key]
For small iterations, doing that 'inline' was a bit faster, because of the overhead of the function call. But del_all is lint-safe, reusable, and faster than all the python comprehension and mapping constructs.

I have no problem with any of the existing answers, but I was surprised to not find this solution:
keys_to_remove = ['a', 'b', 'c']
my_dict = {k: v for k, v in zip("a b c d e f g".split(' '), [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6])}
for k in keys_to_remove:
try:
del my_dict[k]
except KeyError:
pass
assert my_dict == {'d': 3, 'e': 4, 'f': 5, 'g': 6}
Note: I stumbled across this question coming from here. And my answer is related to this answer.

I have tested the performance of three methods:
# Method 1: `del`
for key in remove_keys:
if key in d:
del d[key]
# Method 2: `pop()`
for key in remove_keys:
d.pop(key, None)
# Method 3: comprehension
{key: v for key, v in d.items() if key not in remove_keys}
Here are the results of 1M iterations:
del: 2.03s 2.0 ns/iter (100%)
pop(): 2.38s 2.4 ns/iter (117%)
comprehension: 4.11s 4.1 ns/iter (202%)
So both del and pop() are the fastest. Comprehensions are 2x slower.
But anyway, we speak nanoseconds here :) Dicts in Python are ridiculously fast.

Why not:
entriestoremove = (2,5,1)
for e in entriestoremove:
if d.has_key(e):
del d[e]
I don't know what you mean by "smarter way". Surely there are other ways, maybe with dictionary comprehensions:
entriestoremove = (2,5,1)
newdict = {x for x in d if x not in entriestoremove}

inline
import functools
#: not key(c) in d
d = {"a": "avalue", "b": "bvalue", "d": "dvalue"}
entitiesToREmove = ('a', 'b', 'c')
#: python2
map(lambda x: functools.partial(d.pop, x, None)(), entitiesToREmove)
#: python3
list(map(lambda x: functools.partial(d.pop, x, None)(), entitiesToREmove))
print(d)
# output: {'d': 'dvalue'}

I think using the fact that the keys can be treated as a set is the nicest way if you're on python 3:
def remove_keys(d, keys):
to_remove = set(keys)
filtered_keys = d.keys() - to_remove
filtered_values = map(d.get, filtered_keys)
return dict(zip(filtered_keys, filtered_values))
Example:
>>> remove_keys({'k1': 1, 'k3': 3}, ['k1', 'k2'])
{'k3': 3}

It would be nice to have full support for set methods for dictionaries (and not the unholy mess we're getting with Python 3.9) so that you could simply "remove" a set of keys. However, as long as that's not the case, and you have a large dictionary with potentially a large number of keys to remove, you might want to know about the performance. So, I've created some code that creates something large enough for meaningful comparisons: a 100,000 x 1000 matrix, so 10,000,00 items in total.
from itertools import product
from time import perf_counter
# make a complete worksheet 100000 * 1000
start = perf_counter()
prod = product(range(1, 100000), range(1, 1000))
cells = {(x,y):x for x,y in prod}
print(len(cells))
print(f"Create time {perf_counter()-start:.2f}s")
clock = perf_counter()
# remove everything above row 50,000
keys = product(range(50000, 100000), range(1, 100))
# for x,y in keys:
# del cells[x, y]
for n in map(cells.pop, keys):
pass
print(len(cells))
stop = perf_counter()
print(f"Removal time {stop-clock:.2f}s")
10 million items or more is not unusual in some settings. Comparing the two methods on my local machine I see a slight improvement when using map and pop, presumably because of fewer function calls, but both take around 2.5s on my machine. But this pales in comparison to the time required to create the dictionary in the first place (55s), or including checks within the loop. If this is likely then its best to create a set that is a intersection of the dictionary keys and your filter:
keys = cells.keys() & keys
In summary: del is already heavily optimised, so don't worry about using it.

Another map() way to remove list of keys from dictionary
and avoid raising KeyError exception
dic = {
'key1': 1,
'key2': 2,
'key3': 3,
'key4': 4,
'key5': 5,
}
keys_to_remove = ['key_not_exist', 'key1', 'key2', 'key3']
k = list(map(dic.pop, keys_to_remove, keys_to_remove))
print('k=', k)
print('dic after = \n', dic)
**this will produce output**
k= ['key_not_exist', 1, 2, 3]
dic after = {'key4': 4, 'key5': 5}
Duplicate keys_to_remove is artificial, it needs to supply defaults values for dict.pop() function.
You can add here any array with len_ = len(key_to_remove)
For example
dic = {
'key1': 1,
'key2': 2,
'key3': 3,
'key4': 4,
'key5': 5,
}
keys_to_remove = ['key_not_exist', 'key1', 'key2', 'key3']
k = list(map(dic.pop, keys_to_remove, np.zeros(len(keys_to_remove))))
print('k=', k)
print('dic after = ', dic)
** will produce output **
k= [0.0, 1, 2, 3]
dic after = {'key4': 4, 'key5': 5}

def delete_keys_from_dict(dictionary, keys):
"""
Deletes the unwanted keys in the dictionary
:param dictionary: dict
:param keys: list of keys
:return: dict (modified)
"""
from collections.abc import MutableMapping
keys_set = set(keys)
modified_dict = {}
for key, value in dictionary.items():
if key not in keys_set:
if isinstance(value, list):
modified_dict[key] = list()
for x in value:
if isinstance(x, MutableMapping):
modified_dict[key].append(delete_keys_from_dict(x, keys_set))
else:
modified_dict[key].append(x)
elif isinstance(value, MutableMapping):
modified_dict[key] = delete_keys_from_dict(value, keys_set)
else:
modified_dict[key] = value
return modified_dict
_d = {'a': 1245, 'b': 1234325, 'c': {'a': 1245, 'b': 1234325}, 'd': 98765,
'e': [{'a': 1245, 'b': 1234325},
{'a': 1245, 'b': 1234325},
{'t': 767}]}
_output = delete_keys_from_dict(_d, ['a', 'b'])
_expected = {'c': {}, 'd': 98765, 'e': [{}, {}, {'t': 767}]}
print(_expected)
print(_output)

I'm late to this discussion but for anyone else. A solution may be to create a list of keys as such.
k = ['a','b','c','d']
Then use pop() in a list comprehension, or for loop, to iterate over the keys and pop one at a time as such.
new_dictionary = [dictionary.pop(x, 'n/a') for x in k]
The 'n/a' is in case the key does not exist, a default value needs to be returned.

Removing multiple keys from a dictionary safely

I know how to remove an entry, 'key' from my dictionary d, safely. You do:
if d.has_key('key'):
del d['key']
However, I need to remove multiple entries from a dictionary safely. I was thinking of defining the entries in a tuple as I will need to do this more than once.
entities_to_remove = ('a', 'b', 'c')
for x in entities_to_remove:
if x in d:
del d[x]
However, I was wondering if there is a smarter way to do this?

Using dict.pop:
d = {'some': 'data'}
entries_to_remove = ('any', 'iterable')
for k in entries_to_remove:
d.pop(k, None)

Using Dict Comprehensions
final_dict = {key: value for key, value in d if key not in [key1, key2]}
where key1 and key2 are to be removed.
In the example below, keys "b" and "c" are to be removed & it's kept in a keys list.
>>> a
{'a': 1, 'c': 3, 'b': 2, 'd': 4}
>>> keys = ["b", "c"]
>>> print {key: a[key] for key in a if key not in keys}
{'a': 1, 'd': 4}
>>>

Why not like this:
entries = ('a', 'b', 'c')
the_dict = {'b': 'foo'}
def entries_to_remove(entries, the_dict):
for key in entries:
if key in the_dict:
del the_dict[key]
A more compact version was provided by mattbornski using dict.pop()

a solution is using map and filter functions
python 2
d={"a":1,"b":2,"c":3}
l=("a","b","d")
map(d.__delitem__, filter(d.__contains__,l))
print(d)
python 3
d={"a":1,"b":2,"c":3}
l=("a","b","d")
list(map(d.__delitem__, filter(d.__contains__,l)))
print(d)
you get:
{'c': 3}

If you also need to retrieve the values for the keys you are removing, this would be a pretty good way to do it:
values_removed = [d.pop(k, None) for k in entities_to_remove]
You could of course still do this just for the removal of the keys from d, but you would be unnecessarily creating the list of values with the list comprehension. It is also a little unclear to use a list comprehension just for the function's side effect.

Found a solution with pop and map
d = {'a': 'valueA', 'b': 'valueB', 'c': 'valueC', 'd': 'valueD'}
keys = ['a', 'b', 'c']
list(map(d.pop, keys))
print(d)
The output of this:
{'d': 'valueD'}
I have answered this question so late just because I think it will help in the future if anyone searches the same. And this might help.
Update
The above code will throw an error if a key does not exist in the dict.
DICTIONARY = {'a': 'valueA', 'b': 'valueB', 'c': 'valueC', 'd': 'valueD'}
keys = ['a', 'l', 'c']
def remove_key(key):
DICTIONARY.pop(key, None)
list(map(remove_key, keys))
print(DICTIONARY)
output:
DICTIONARY = {'b': 'valueB', 'd': 'valueD'}

Some timing tests for cpython 3 shows that a simple for loop is the fastest way, and it's quite readable. Adding in a function doesn't cause much overhead either:
timeit results (10k iterations):
all(x.pop(v) for v in r) # 0.85
all(map(x.pop, r)) # 0.60
list(map(x.pop, r)) # 0.70
all(map(x.__delitem__, r)) # 0.44
del_all(x, r) # 0.40
<inline for loop>(x, r) # 0.35
def del_all(mapping, to_remove):
"""Remove list of elements from mapping."""
for key in to_remove:
del mapping[key]
For small iterations, doing that 'inline' was a bit faster, because of the overhead of the function call. But del_all is lint-safe, reusable, and faster than all the python comprehension and mapping constructs.

I have no problem with any of the existing answers, but I was surprised to not find this solution:
keys_to_remove = ['a', 'b', 'c']
my_dict = {k: v for k, v in zip("a b c d e f g".split(' '), [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6])}
for k in keys_to_remove:
try:
del my_dict[k]
except KeyError:
pass
assert my_dict == {'d': 3, 'e': 4, 'f': 5, 'g': 6}
Note: I stumbled across this question coming from here. And my answer is related to this answer.

I have tested the performance of three methods:
# Method 1: `del`
for key in remove_keys:
if key in d:
del d[key]
# Method 2: `pop()`
for key in remove_keys:
d.pop(key, None)
# Method 3: comprehension
{key: v for key, v in d.items() if key not in remove_keys}
Here are the results of 1M iterations:
del: 2.03s 2.0 ns/iter (100%)
pop(): 2.38s 2.4 ns/iter (117%)
comprehension: 4.11s 4.1 ns/iter (202%)
So both del and pop() are the fastest. Comprehensions are 2x slower.
But anyway, we speak nanoseconds here :) Dicts in Python are ridiculously fast.

Why not:
entriestoremove = (2,5,1)
for e in entriestoremove:
if d.has_key(e):
del d[e]
I don't know what you mean by "smarter way". Surely there are other ways, maybe with dictionary comprehensions:
entriestoremove = (2,5,1)
newdict = {x for x in d if x not in entriestoremove}

inline
import functools
#: not key(c) in d
d = {"a": "avalue", "b": "bvalue", "d": "dvalue"}
entitiesToREmove = ('a', 'b', 'c')
#: python2
map(lambda x: functools.partial(d.pop, x, None)(), entitiesToREmove)
#: python3
list(map(lambda x: functools.partial(d.pop, x, None)(), entitiesToREmove))
print(d)
# output: {'d': 'dvalue'}

I think using the fact that the keys can be treated as a set is the nicest way if you're on python 3:
def remove_keys(d, keys):
to_remove = set(keys)
filtered_keys = d.keys() - to_remove
filtered_values = map(d.get, filtered_keys)
return dict(zip(filtered_keys, filtered_values))
Example:
>>> remove_keys({'k1': 1, 'k3': 3}, ['k1', 'k2'])
{'k3': 3}

It would be nice to have full support for set methods for dictionaries (and not the unholy mess we're getting with Python 3.9) so that you could simply "remove" a set of keys. However, as long as that's not the case, and you have a large dictionary with potentially a large number of keys to remove, you might want to know about the performance. So, I've created some code that creates something large enough for meaningful comparisons: a 100,000 x 1000 matrix, so 10,000,00 items in total.
from itertools import product
from time import perf_counter
# make a complete worksheet 100000 * 1000
start = perf_counter()
prod = product(range(1, 100000), range(1, 1000))
cells = {(x,y):x for x,y in prod}
print(len(cells))
print(f"Create time {perf_counter()-start:.2f}s")
clock = perf_counter()
# remove everything above row 50,000
keys = product(range(50000, 100000), range(1, 100))
# for x,y in keys:
# del cells[x, y]
for n in map(cells.pop, keys):
pass
print(len(cells))
stop = perf_counter()
print(f"Removal time {stop-clock:.2f}s")
10 million items or more is not unusual in some settings. Comparing the two methods on my local machine I see a slight improvement when using map and pop, presumably because of fewer function calls, but both take around 2.5s on my machine. But this pales in comparison to the time required to create the dictionary in the first place (55s), or including checks within the loop. If this is likely then its best to create a set that is a intersection of the dictionary keys and your filter:
keys = cells.keys() & keys
In summary: del is already heavily optimised, so don't worry about using it.

Another map() way to remove list of keys from dictionary
and avoid raising KeyError exception
dic = {
'key1': 1,
'key2': 2,
'key3': 3,
'key4': 4,
'key5': 5,
}
keys_to_remove = ['key_not_exist', 'key1', 'key2', 'key3']
k = list(map(dic.pop, keys_to_remove, keys_to_remove))
print('k=', k)
print('dic after = \n', dic)
**this will produce output**
k= ['key_not_exist', 1, 2, 3]
dic after = {'key4': 4, 'key5': 5}
Duplicate keys_to_remove is artificial, it needs to supply defaults values for dict.pop() function.
You can add here any array with len_ = len(key_to_remove)
For example
dic = {
'key1': 1,
'key2': 2,
'key3': 3,
'key4': 4,
'key5': 5,
}
keys_to_remove = ['key_not_exist', 'key1', 'key2', 'key3']
k = list(map(dic.pop, keys_to_remove, np.zeros(len(keys_to_remove))))
print('k=', k)
print('dic after = ', dic)
** will produce output **
k= [0.0, 1, 2, 3]
dic after = {'key4': 4, 'key5': 5}

def delete_keys_from_dict(dictionary, keys):
"""
Deletes the unwanted keys in the dictionary
:param dictionary: dict
:param keys: list of keys
:return: dict (modified)
"""
from collections.abc import MutableMapping
keys_set = set(keys)
modified_dict = {}
for key, value in dictionary.items():
if key not in keys_set:
if isinstance(value, list):
modified_dict[key] = list()
for x in value:
if isinstance(x, MutableMapping):
modified_dict[key].append(delete_keys_from_dict(x, keys_set))
else:
modified_dict[key].append(x)
elif isinstance(value, MutableMapping):
modified_dict[key] = delete_keys_from_dict(value, keys_set)
else:
modified_dict[key] = value
return modified_dict
_d = {'a': 1245, 'b': 1234325, 'c': {'a': 1245, 'b': 1234325}, 'd': 98765,
'e': [{'a': 1245, 'b': 1234325},
{'a': 1245, 'b': 1234325},
{'t': 767}]}
_output = delete_keys_from_dict(_d, ['a', 'b'])
_expected = {'c': {}, 'd': 98765, 'e': [{}, {}, {'t': 767}]}
print(_expected)
print(_output)

I'm late to this discussion but for anyone else. A solution may be to create a list of keys as such.
k = ['a','b','c','d']
Then use pop() in a list comprehension, or for loop, to iterate over the keys and pop one at a time as such.
new_dictionary = [dictionary.pop(x, 'n/a') for x in k]
The 'n/a' is in case the key does not exist, a default value needs to be returned.

How do I delete items from a dictionary while iterating over it?

Can I delete items from a dictionary in Python while iterating over it?
I want to remove elements that don't meet a certain condition from the dictionary, instead of creating an entirely new dictionary. Is the following a good solution, or are there better ways?
for k, v in mydict.items():
if k == val:
del mydict[k]

For Python 3+:
>>> mydict
{'four': 4, 'three': 3, 'one': 1}
>>> for k in list(mydict.keys()):
... if mydict[k] == 3:
... del mydict[k]
>>> mydict
{'four': 4, 'one': 1}
The other answers work fine with Python 2 but raise a RuntimeError for Python 3:
RuntimeError: dictionary changed size during iteration.
This happens because mydict.keys() returns an iterator not a list.
As pointed out in comments simply convert mydict.keys() to a list by list(mydict.keys()) and it should work.
For Python 2:
A simple test in the console shows you cannot modify a dictionary while iterating over it:
>>> mydict = {'one': 1, 'two': 2, 'three': 3, 'four': 4}
>>> for k, v in mydict.iteritems():
... if k == 'two':
... del mydict[k]
------------------------------------------------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<ipython console>", line 1, in <module>
RuntimeError: dictionary changed size during iteration
As stated in delnan's answer, deleting entries causes problems when the iterator tries to move onto the next entry. Instead, use the keys() method to get a list of the keys and work with that:
>>> for k in mydict.keys():
... if k == 'two':
... del mydict[k]
>>> mydict
{'four': 4, 'three': 3, 'one': 1}
If you need to delete based on the items value, use the items() method instead:
>>> for k, v in mydict.items():
... if v == 3:
... del mydict[k]
>>> mydict
{'four': 4, 'one': 1}

You could also do it in two steps:
remove = [k for k in mydict if k == val]
for k in remove: del mydict[k]
My favorite approach is usually to just make a new dict:
# Python 2.7 and 3.x
mydict = { k:v for k,v in mydict.items() if k!=val }
# before Python 2.7
mydict = dict((k,v) for k,v in mydict.iteritems() if k!=val)

Iterate over a copy instead, such as the one returned by items():
for k, v in list(mydict.items()):

You can't modify a collection while iterating it. That way lies madness - most notably, if you were allowed to delete and deleted the current item, the iterator would have to move on (+1) and the next call to next would take you beyond that (+2), so you'd end up skipping one element (the one right behind the one you deleted). You have two options:
Copy all keys (or values, or both, depending on what you need), then iterate over those. You can use .keys() et al for this (in Python 3, pass the resulting iterator to list). Could be highly wasteful space-wise though.
Iterate over mydict as usual, saving the keys to delete in a seperate collection to_delete. When you're done iterating mydict, delete all items in to_delete from mydict. Saves some (depending on how many keys are deleted and how many stay) space over the first approach, but also requires a few more lines.

It's cleanest to use list(mydict):
>>> mydict = {'one': 1, 'two': 2, 'three': 3, 'four': 4}
>>> for k in list(mydict):
... if k == 'three':
... del mydict[k]
...
>>> mydict
{'four': 4, 'two': 2, 'one': 1}
This corresponds to a parallel structure for lists:
>>> mylist = ['one', 'two', 'three', 'four']
>>> for k in list(mylist): # or mylist[:]
... if k == 'three':
... mylist.remove(k)
...
>>> mylist
['one', 'two', 'four']
Both work in python2 and python3.

With python3, iterate on dic.keys() will raise the dictionary size error. You can use this alternative way:
Tested with python3, it works fine and the Error "dictionary changed size during iteration" is not raised:
my_dic = { 1:10, 2:20, 3:30 }
# Is important here to cast because ".keys()" method returns a dict_keys object.
key_list = list( my_dic.keys() )
# Iterate on the list:
for k in key_list:
print(key_list)
print(my_dic)
del( my_dic[k] )
print( my_dic )
# {}

You can use a dictionary comprehension.
d = {k:d[k] for k in d if d[k] != val}

You could first build a list of keys to delete, and then iterate over that list deleting them.
dict = {'one' : 1, 'two' : 2, 'three' : 3, 'four' : 4}
delete = []
for k,v in dict.items():
if v%2 == 1:
delete.append(k)
for i in delete:
del dict[i]

There is a way that may be suitable if the items you want to delete are always at the "beginning" of the dict iteration
while mydict:
key, value = next(iter(mydict.items()))
if should_delete(key, value):
del mydict[key]
else:
break
The "beginning" is only guaranteed to be consistent for certain Python versions/implementations. For example from What’s New In Python 3.7
the insertion-order preservation nature of dict objects has been declared to be an official part of the Python language spec.
This way avoids a copy of the dict that a lot of the other answers suggest, at least in Python 3.

I tried the above solutions in Python3 but this one seems to be the only one working for me when storing objects in a dict. Basically you make a copy of your dict() and iterate over that while deleting the entries in your original dictionary.
tmpDict = realDict.copy()
for key, value in tmpDict.items():
if value:
del(realDict[key])

One-liner:
my_dict = {k: v for k, v in my_dict.copy().items() if not k == value}
The my_dict.copy() object is used for the iteration only and will not be available outside the scope of the dictionary comprehension. This avoids editing the object over which you are currently iterating, as advised against by #user395760 in their answer.
You can split this over multiple lines for clarity:
my_dict = {
k: v
for k, v in my_dict.copy().items()
if not k == value
}