The list.pop(index) returns the element represented by the index and also reduces the list by removing that element. So it a short one liner for doing both things. But when it comes for popping a slice of the list there is nothing similar for doing in that simple way.
If you want to remove a slice and also reduce the list you will have something like this: a_list, a_slice = a_list[:size], a_list[size:] or even worser if you try to do the same for something in the middle. My proposal is the extension of list.pop for accepting a way for popping slices. When doing this: a_list.pop(i,j) pop will return the slice [i,j] and remove it from the list. For popping from an index to the end: a_list.pop(i, len(a_list)) Or even emptying the whole list: a_list.pop(0, len(a_list)) So this is it :) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list