Python dictionary: Remove all the keys that begins with s

Question

I've got a dictionary like

dic = {'s_good': 23, 's_bad': 39, 'good_s': 34}

I want to remove all the keys that begins with 's_'

So in this case first two will be removed.

Is there any efficient way to do so?

Answer 1

for k in dic.keys():
    if k.startswith('s_'):
        del dic[k]

* EDIT * now in python 3 , years after the original answer, keys() returns a view into the dict so you can't change the dict size.

One of the most elegant solutions is a copy of the keys:

for k in list(dic.keys()):
    if k.startswith('s_'):
        del dic[k]

Answer 2

This should do it:

for k in dic.keys():
  if k.startswith('s_'):
    dic.pop(k)

Answer 3

With python 3 to avoid the error:

RuntimeError: dictionary changed size during iteration 

This should do it:

list_keys = list(dic.keys())
for k in list_keys:
  if k.startswith('s_'):
    dic.pop(k)