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Day 24

Day 24: Sets and Their Applications

24/60 Days

Sets and Their Applications #

Welcome to Day 24 of our 60 Days of Coding Algorithm Challenge! Today, we’ll explore Sets, a fundamental data structure in computer science, and their various applications in solving algorithmic problems efficiently.

Introduction to Sets #

A set is an unordered collection of distinct elements. In mathematics, a set is a well-defined collection of distinct objects. In computer science, sets are implemented as data structures that store unique elements, typically allowing for rapid retrieval and efficient set operations.

Key properties of sets:

  1. No duplicate elements
  2. Elements are unordered
  3. Efficient membership testing
  4. Support for set operations (union, intersection, difference)

Implementing Sets in Python #

Python provides a built-in set type, which we’ll use for our examples:

 1# Creating a set
 2fruits = {'apple', 'banana', 'orange'}
 3
 4# Adding an element
 5fruits.add('grape')
 6
 7# Removing an element
 8fruits.remove('banana')
 9
10# Checking membership
11print('apple' in fruits)  # True
12
13# Set size
14print(len(fruits))  # 3
15
16print(fruits)  # …