Python: Return the symmetric difference between two iterables, without filtering out duplicate values

Last update on April 19 2025 12:57:52 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

Symmetric Difference with Duplicates

Write a Python program to get the symmetric difference between two iterables, without filtering out duplicate values.

Create a set from each list.
Use a list comprehension on each of them to only keep values not contained in the previously created set of the other.

Sample Solution:

Python Code:

# Define a function 'symmetric_difference' that takes two lists, 'x' and 'y', as input.
def symmetric_difference(x, y):
    # Create sets '_x' and '_y' from the input lists 'x' and 'y'.
    _x, _y = set(x), set(y)
    
    # Calculate the symmetric difference of the two sets and store it in a list.
    # The symmetric difference contains elements that are unique to each set.
    symmetric_diff = [item for item in x if item not in _y] + [item for item in y if item not in _x]
    
    # Return the result.
    return symmetric_diff

# Call the 'symmetric_difference' function with two lists and print the symmetric difference.
print(symmetric_difference([10, 20, 30], [10, 20, 40]))

Sample Output:

[30, 40]

Flowchart:

For more Practice: Solve these Related Problems:

Write a Python program to compute the symmetric difference of two lists with duplicates while preserving the original order.
Write a Python program to find the symmetric difference between two iterables including duplicate occurrences and output the result as a sorted list.
Write a Python program to compute the symmetric difference with duplicates and also return a count of each differing element.
Write a Python program to determine the symmetric difference between two lists after applying a transformation function to each element.

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