🎯 Sets
Sets are unordered collections of unique elements. They are mutable and provide efficient ways to perform common set operations like unions, intersections, and differences:
my_set = {1, 2, 3}
my_set.add(4) # Add an element
my_set.remove(2) # Remove an element
print(my_set) # Output: {1, 3, 4}
Performance and Memory Characteristics
Like dictionaries, set operations such as adding, removing, and checking for membership are O(1) on average.
Sets are conceptually similar to dictionaries with only keys and no values. They are also backed by a hash table, providing fast operations for checking membership, adding, and removing elements. They are memory-efficient for operations involving large numbers of elements but might use more memory than lists or tuples for the same number of elements, due to the hash table mechanism.