Symmetric Differences of Sets in Python: Exploring Mutual Uniqueness

Sets are one of the prominent data structures of Python. As you studied earlier, it is an unordered collection of elements and it provides a variety of operations that you can perform.

Symmetric difference of sets is one such operation that is a part of sets and you must've learned this already in your mathematics but in this article, you will learn this concept in terms of Python and how to implement it in a program. Let's get started.

You learned about sets in Python and in that, I briefly explained the concept of the symmetric difference of sets and in the previous articles, we discussed operations like union of sets, intersection of sets, difference of sets, subset, superset and disjoint sets in Python, and in this article I will be focusing on the next operation of the set which is symmetric difference.

In Python, the symmetric difference of sets is an operation that is similar to set difference but in that, only the unique elements of the first alone are returned but this allows you to find the elements that are unique to each set, excluding the elements that are common to both sets. In other words, it returns a new set containing the elements that are present in either of the sets but not in both.

To compute the symmetric difference of sets in Python, you can use the caret ('^') operator or the 'symmetric_difference()' method. Both approaches yield the same result.

Here's a breakdown of both approaches:

• Using the caret ('^') operator: The '^' operator can be used to find the symmetric difference between sets. It returns a new set containing the unique elements from each set. Here's an example:

 >>> set1 = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}
 >>> set2 = {4, 5, 6, 7}
 >>> symmetric_difference_set = set1 ^ set2
 >>> print(symmetric_difference_set)

This syntax calculates the symmetric difference between set1 and set2 and returns a new set containing the unique elements that belong to either set1 or set2, but not both.

• Using the 'symmetric_difference()' method: The 'symmetric_difference()' method is called on a set and takes one or more sets as arguments. It returns a new set that contains only the unique elements that belong to either one of the sets. Here's an example::

 >>> set1 = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}
 >>> set2 = {4, 5, 6, 7}
 >>> symmetric_difference_set = set1.symmetric_difference(set2)
 >>> print(symmetric_difference_set)

In this example, the symmetric difference operation identifies the unique elements between set1 and set2, excluding the common elements (4 and 5). The resulting set (symmetric_difference_set) contains {1, 2, 3, 6, 7} which are the elements present in either set1 or set2, but not both.

In conclusion, by utilizing the symmetric difference operation, you can compare sets and extract the unique elements that are exclusive to each set, enabling you to perform various tasks such as data analysis, filtering, or combining sets while ensuring mutual exclusivity.

By now, you must have a grasp on the function of the symmetric difference of sets in Python and I hope I explained it clearly, make sure you understand it fully by practicing continuously. On the process, if you gain any doubts, feel free to contact us.