EXTREME NOOB, lists?

[Alex Martelli]

"skeetor" <skeetornospam at bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:%FZr5.6738$yl2.92225 at news4.atl...
> Ok, apparently I was unclear.  This language is still unfamiliar to me...
> please help me.

Sure.

> if a == 4:
>      dice_numbers (a)
> elif a == 6:
>      dice_numbers (a)
> elif a == 8:
>      dice_numbers (a)
> elif a == 10:
>      dice_numbers (a)
> elif a == 12:
>      dice_numbers (a)
> elif a == 20:
>      dice_numbers (a)
> elif a == 100:
>      dice_numbers (a)
> else:
>      print ("try again")

Change this sequence to:

if a in (4,6,8,10,12,20,100):
    dice_numbers(a)
else:
    print("try again")


The key idea is the statement form:
    if needle in haystack:
which is satisfied if, and only if, the object referred to by 'needle'
is one of the items in the sequence referred to by 'haystack'. This
gives a compact and elegant solution to a frequent need.

There are other ways, but this one is by far the neatest, and the
one I would strongly advise at this point of your Python learning.


Alex