[Tutor] need a hint

[spir]

On 12/02/2013 03:25 AM, Byron Ruffin wrote:
> The following program works and does what I want except for one last
> problem I need to handle.   The program reads a txt file of senators and
> their associated states and when I input the last name it gives me their
> state.  The problem is "Udall".  There are two of them.  The txt file is
> read by line and put into a dictionary with the names split.  I need a
> process to handle duplicate names.  Preferably one that will always work
> even if the txt file was changed/updated.  I don't want the process to
> handle the name "Udall" specifically.   For a duplicate name I would like
> to tell the user it is not a unique last name and then tell them to enter
> first name and then return the state of that senator.

What I would do, on data storing:
* use last name as key as long as it works (meaning no duplicate last name)
* else, try disambiguating with first name
* else, store multiple statess (if both first and last names are equal)
On data retrieval, follow the same logic.

Denis