Sets in Python are a collection data type that is unordered, unchangeable, and indexed. They are similar to lists or dictionaries but with a key difference that they only contain unique elements and do not support duplicates. This makes sets particularly useful for membership testing, removing duplicates from a sequence, and performing mathematical operations like unions, intersections, and set differences.

Creating and Initializing Sets

Sets can be created using the set() constructor or by using curly braces {}. Here's an example of creating a set with the set() constructor:

Alternatively, you can create a set with curly braces:

Note that sets are unordered, so the items have no index and can appear in a different order every time you use them. Also, sets do not allow mutable items like lists or dictionaries to be included.

Basic Set Operations