Writing less elif statement

Question

I need help with this.

a = ["cat","dog","fish","hamster"]

 user = raw_input("choose your fav pet ")

if user == a[0]:

    print a[0]

elif user == a[1]:

    print a[1]

elif user == a[2]:

    print a[2]

elif user == a[3]:

    print a[3]

else:

    print "sorry, the aninimal you type does not exist"

What I want to do is a testing mobile app so I use animal as testing. The program did work but the problem is that there are over 100's of animals in the world and I put them in a list, I don't want to create many elif statements.

Is there a way to make it shorter and faster?

Is `if user in a: ...` what you seek? Then, you could simply print `user` as exactly this string is contained in your list `a` and you are done. — Michael Hoff, Jul 21 '16 at 06:29
Possible duplicate of [Multiple conditions with if/elif statements](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12335382/multiple-conditions-with-if-elif-statements) — NIKHIL RANE, Jul 21 '16 at 06:43

score 5 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 21 '16 at 06:31

Use a for loop:

for animal in a:
    if user == animal:
        print animal
        break
else:
    print "Sorry, the animal you typed does not exist"

I'd note however that this code is a bit silly. If all you're going to do when you find the animal matching the user's entry is print it, you could instead just check if the entry is in the a list and print user if it is:

if user in a:
    print user
else:
    print "Sorry, the animal you typed does not exist"

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 21 '16 at 06:30

4

I'd go with:

if user in a:
    print user

That will check if user input is in the list of pets and if it is, it will print it.

answered Jul 21 '16 at 06:30

Nhor

3,860
6
28
41

2

Or even `print(a.get(user, "sorry, the animal you type does not exist"))` – csl Jul 21 '16 at 06:32
1

@csl: `a` is a list not a `dict`, so there is no `a.get` method to call. – Blckknght Jul 21 '16 at 06:49

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 21 '16 at 06:32

0

Use in operator:

if user in a:
    print user
else : 
    print "sorry, the aninimal you type does not exist"

answered Jul 21 '16 at 06:32

Puneet Tripathi

412
3
15

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 21 '16 at 06:51

0

 a = ["cat","dog","pig","cat"]
    animal = input("enter animal:")

    if animal in a:
        print (animal , "found")
    else:
        print ("animal you entered not found in the list")

The above code is apt for your requirement.

answered Jul 21 '16 at 06:51

Chakradhar Burra

1
3

Does your answer add value to the already existing answers (or is your solution significantly different from earlier answers)? – Nander Speerstra Jul 21 '16 at 07:02

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 21 '16 at 08:47

I would like to add a new way which i am unable to guess how every body missed. We must check string with case insensitive criteria.

a = ["cat","dog","fish","hamster"]

user = raw_input("choose your fav pet ")
// adding for user case where user might have entered DOG, but that is valid match
matching_obj = [data for data in a if data.lower() == user.lower()]

if matching_obj:
    print("Data found ",matching_obj)
else:
    print("Data not found")

Writing less elif statement

5 Answers5