Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

Python Python Collections (2016, retired 2019) Lists Removing items from a list

remove

What am I doing wrong?

lists.py
messy_list = ["a", 2, 3, 1, False, [1, 2, 3]]

messy_list.insert(0, messy_list.pop(3))

del messy_list("a")
del messy_list(False)

1 Answer

If you run this in a workspace you'll receive a better error message:

    del messy_list("a")                                                                               
       ^                                                                                              
SyntaxError: can't delete function call        

So first instinct may be to switch to square brackets - but no:

    del messy_list["a"]                                                                               
TypeError: list indices must be integers or slices, not str    

Finally use integers for list indices:

del messy_list[1]
del messy_list[3]
del messy_list[3]  

Thank you it worked.