How do I get the symmetric intersection between Python sets?

Question

I've been learning about Python sets recently. Let's say we have two sets:

set1 = {'dog', 'cat', 'hamster'}
set2 = {'monkey', 'dog'}

I know how to get the symmetric difference:

>>> set1.symmetric_difference(set2)
{'hamster', 'cat', 'monkey'}

But how do I get the symmetric intersection?

>>> set1.symmetric_intersection(set2)
...
AttributeError: 'set' object has no attribute 'symmetric_intersection'

Answer 1

There is no such thing as a "symmetric intersection" for set operations, in Python or generally in mathematics/set theory.

The available set operations between two sets that result in a new set are union, intersection, difference and symmetric_difference.

Operation	Equivalent	Result
s.union(t)	s | t	new set with elements from both s and t
s.intersection(t)	s & t	new set with elements common to s and t
s.difference(t)	s - t	new set with elements in s but not in t
s.symmetric_difference(t)	s ^ t	new set with elements in either s or t but not both

Between these operations, all the possible relationships between 2 sets are covered.