1.8.8 Advanced Topic: Lists as Sets

Mathematica usually keeps the elements of a list in exactly the order you originally entered them. If you want to treat a Mathematica list like a mathematical set, however, you may want to ignore the order of elements in the list.

Set theoretical functions.

Union gives the elements that occur in any of the lists.

In[1]:= Union[{c, a, b}, {d, a, c}, {a, e}]

Out[1]=

Intersection gives only elements that occur in all the lists.

In[2]:= Intersection[{a, c, b}, {b, a, d, a}]

Out[2]=

Complement gives elements that occur in the first list, but not in any of the others.

In[3]:= Complement[{a, b, c, d}, {a, d}]

Out[3]=