How to pop() a list n times in Python?

I'll go ahead and post a couple answers. The easiest way to get some of a list is using slice notation:

pl = pl[:5] # get the first five elements.

If you really want to pop from the list this works:

while len(pl) > 5:
  pl.pop()

If you're after a random selection of the choices from that list, this is probably most effective:

import random
random.sample(range(10), 3)

Since this is a list, you can just get the last five elements by slicing it:

last_photos = photos[5:]

This will return a shallow copy, so any edit in any of the lists will be reflected in the other. If you don't want this behaviour you should first make a deep copy.

import copy
last_photos = copy.deepcopy(photos)[5:]

edit:

should of course have been [5:] instead of [:-5] But if you actually want to 'pop' it 5 times, this means you want the list without its last 5 elements...

In most languages pop() removes and returns the last element from a collection. So to remove and return n elements at the same time, how about:

def getPhotos(num):
    return [pl.pop() for _ in range(0,num)]