Remove an item from a dictionary when its key is unknown

What is the best way to remove an item from a dictionary by value, i.e. when the item's key is unknown? Here's a simple approach:

for key, item in some_dict.items():
    if item is item_to_remove:
        del some_dict[key]

Are there better ways? Is there anything wrong with mutating (deleting items) from the dictionary while iterating it?

The dict.pop(key[, default]) method allows you to remove items when you know the key. It returns the value at the key if it removes the item otherwise it returns what is passed as default. See the docs.'

Example:

>>> dic = {'a':1, 'b':2}
>>> dic
{'a': 1, 'b': 2}
>>> dic.pop('c', 0)
0
>>> dic.pop('a', 0)
1
>>> dic
{'b': 2}

Be aware that you're currently testing for object identity (is only returns True if both operands are represented by the same object in memory - this is not always the case with two object that compare equal with ==). If you are doing this on purpose, then you could rewrite your code as

some_dict = {key: value for key, value in some_dict.items() 
             if value is not value_to_remove}

But this may not do what you want:

>>> some_dict = {1: "Hello", 2: "Goodbye", 3: "You say yes", 4: "I say no"}
>>> value_to_remove = "You say yes"
>>> some_dict = {key: value for key, value in some_dict.items() if value is not value_to_remove}
>>> some_dict
{1: 'Hello', 2: 'Goodbye', 3: 'You say yes', 4: 'I say no'}
>>> some_dict = {key: value for key, value in some_dict.items() if value != value_to_remove}
>>> some_dict
{1: 'Hello', 2: 'Goodbye', 4: 'I say no'}

So you probably want != instead of is not.

a = {'name': 'your_name','class': 4}
if 'name' in a: del a['name']

A simple comparison between del and pop():

import timeit
code = """
results = {'A': 1, 'B': 2, 'C': 3}
del results['A']
del results['B']
"""
print timeit.timeit(code, number=100000)
code = """
results = {'A': 1, 'B': 2, 'C': 3}
results.pop('A')
results.pop('B')
"""
print timeit.timeit(code, number=100000)

result:

0.0329667857143
0.0451040902256

So, del is faster than pop().

I'd build a list of keys that need removing, then remove them. It's simple, efficient and avoids any problem about simultaneously iterating over and mutating the dict.

keys_to_remove = [key for key, value in some_dict.iteritems()
                  if value == value_to_remove]
for key in keys_to_remove:
    del some_dict[key]