Join Two Sets in Python
-
A |= B
to Join Two Sets in Python -
A.update(B)
to Join Two Sets in Python -
A.union(B)
to Join Two Sets in Python -
reduce(operator.or_, [A, B])
to Join Two Sets in Python

In this tutorial, we will introduce different methods to join two sets in Python.
A |= B
A.update(B)
A.union(B)
reduce(operator.or_, [A, B])
A |= B
to Join Two Sets in Python
A |= B
adds all elements of set B
to set A
.
>>> A = {4, 5, 6, 7}
>>> B = {6, 7, 8, 9}
>>> A |= B
>>> A
{4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9}
A.update(B)
to Join Two Sets in Python
A.update(B)
method is identical to A |= B
. It modifes set A
in place.
>>> A = ["a", "b", "c"]
>>> B = ["b", "c", "d"]
>>> A.update(B)
>>> A
["a", "b", "c", "d"]
A.union(B)
to Join Two Sets in Python
A.union(B)
returns the union of sets A
and B
. It doesn’t modify set A
in place but returns a new set.
>>> A = {4, 5, 6, 7}
>>> B = {6, 7, 8, 9}
>>> A.union(B)
{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}
>>> A
{1, 2, 3, 4}
It is identical to A | B
.
reduce(operator.or_, [A, B])
to Join Two Sets in Python
operator.or_(A, B)
returns the bitwiser or
of A
and B
, or union of sets A
and B
if A
and B
are sets.
reduce
in Python 2.x or functools.reduce
in both Python 2.x and 3.x applies function to the items of iterable.
Therefore, reduce(operator.or_, [A, B])
applies or
function to A
and B
. It is the identical to the Python expression A | B
>>> import operator
>>> from functools import reduce
>>> A = {4, 5, 6, 7}
>>> B = {6, 7, 8, 9}
>>> reduce(operator.or_, [A, B])
{4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9}
reduce
is the built-in function in Python 2.x, but is deprecated in Python 3.
Therefore, we need to use functools.reduce
to make the codes compatible in Python 2 and 3.
Founder of DelftStack.com. Jinku has worked in the robotics and automotive industries for over 8 years. He sharpened his coding skills when he needed to do the automatic testing, data collection from remote servers and report creation from the endurance test. He is from an electrical/electronics engineering background but has expanded his interest to embedded electronics, embedded programming and front-/back-end programming.
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