Newbie: switch question in Python

[Greg Ewing]

"William J. King" wrote:
> 
> -- so I wrote a switch and would like to know if
> its ok to do this or if you have any other better
> ideas...

Using exec for things like this is extremely inefficient,
and tends to suffer from scoping problems. A neater way
would be

   def case1:
      for m in range(1,3):
         print m

   def case4:
      for m in range(4,7):
         print m

   #...etc...

   switch = {
      1: case1,
      4: case4,
      ...
   }

   # ...and to call it...

   switch[q]()

But unless you really need the speed, it's a lot clearer
still just to write a series of if...elifs.

Greg