title: Python: Using del in for loops
body: <p>I was iterating through a list with a for loop, when I realized del seemed to not work. I assume this is because i is representing an object of the for loop and the del is simply deleting that object and not the reference.</p>
  
  <p>And yet, I was sure I had done something like this before and it worked.</p>
  
  <pre><code>alist = [6,8,3,4,5]  
  
  for i in alist:  
      if i == 8:  
          del i  
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>In my code its actually a list of strings, but the result is the same: even though the if conditional is satisfied, deleting i has no effect.</p>
  
  <p>Is there a way I can delete a number or string in this way? Am I doing something wrong?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks.</p>