{"id":121366,"date":"2020-11-30T15:50:35","date_gmt":"2020-11-30T15:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.finxter.com\/?p=17623"},"modified":"2020-11-30T15:50:35","modified_gmt":"2020-11-30T15:50:35","slug":"list-clear-vs-new-list-why-clearing-a-list-rather-than-creating-a-new-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/11\/30\/list-clear-vs-new-list-why-clearing-a-list-rather-than-creating-a-new-one\/","title":{"rendered":"list.clear() vs New List \u2014 Why Clearing a List Rather Than Creating a New One?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Problem<\/strong>: You’ve just learned about the list.clear()<\/a><\/code> method in Python. You wonder, what’s its purpose? Why not creating a new list and overwriting the variable instead of clearing an existing list?<\/p>\n

Example<\/strong>: Say, you have the following list.<\/p>\n

lst = ['Alice', 'Bob', 'Carl']<\/pre>\n
If you clear the list, it becomes empty:<\/p>\n
lst.clear()\nprint(lst)\n# []<\/pre>\n
However, you could have accomplished the same thing by just assigning a new empty list to the variable lst<\/code>:<\/p>\n
lst = ['Alice', 'Bob', 'Carl']\nlst = []\nprint(lst)\n# []\n<\/pre>\n
The output is the same. Why does the list.clear()<\/code> method exist in the first place?<\/p>\n
If you go through the following interactive memory visualizer, you’ll see that both variants lead to different results if you have multiple variables pointing to the list object: <\/p>\n