How to remove 'nothing' from a list

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#1

Let’s say I have the following:

['I', 'am', 'left', '', 'handed']

How do I remove index 3 from the list?

#2

There’s a built-in list method for exactly that…

https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/datastructures.html?highlight=pop

The docs are worth reading. :slight_smile:

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#3

If you are unsure of the position of the offending element in a given list, or if the number of occurrences may vary, you could use something like this:

while '' in myList:
    myList.remove('')

There are many options, and as @thepitycoder pointed out, the docs are most definitely worth reading.

#4

Aside

Consider that when we, the_string.split(separator_string), we are expected to reconstruct that exact string with separator_string.join(the_split_list).

If we remove the empty strings from the split version, we cannot replicate the original string from that result.

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#5

Meant to come back with an example, but got called away.

>>> m = 'mississippi'.split('s')
>>> m
['mi', '', 'i', '', 'ippi']
>>> n = filter(lambda x: len(x) > 0, m)
>>> n
['mi', 'i', 'ippi']
>>> 's'.join(n)
'misisippi'
>>> 's'.join(m)
'mississippi'
>>>
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