Dictionary question

[Brian Elmegaard]

Hi 

I have written the following which works, but I would like to write it
less clumsy. I have a dictionary in which I loop through the keys for
a dynamic programming algorithm. If a key is present I test if its
value is better than the current, if it is not present I just create
it. Would it be possible to write it more compact?

###############3
c=1
s=8
x=2

l=list()
l.append(dict())
l[0][5]=0

l.append(dict())

for a, e in l[-2].iteritems():
    if a+c<s: ##### Can this improved?
        if a+c in l[-1]: #####
            if l[-1][a+c]<x+e: #####
                l[-1][a+c]=x+e #####
            else: #####
                l[-1][a+c]=x+e #####
print l
#####################

tia,
-- 
Brian (remove the sport for mail)
http://www.et.web.mek.dtu.dk/Staff/be/be.html
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