On Jan 22, 7:58 pm, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I'm still learning Python and was wanting to get some thoughts on this. I
> apologize if this sounds ridiculous... I'm mainly asking it to gain some
> knowledge of what works better. The main question I have is if I had a lot
> of lists to choose from, what's the best way to write the code so I'm not
> wasting a lot of memory? I've attempted to list a few examples below to
> hopefully be a little clearer about my question.
>
> Lets say I was going to be pulling different data, depending on what the user
> entered. I was thinking I could create a function which contained various
> functions inside:
>
> def albumInfo(theBand):
> def Rush():
> return ['Rush', 'Fly By Night', 'Caress of Steel', '2112', 'A
> Farewell to Kings', 'Hemispheres']
>
> def Enchant():
> return ['A Blueprint of the World', 'Wounded', 'Time Lost']
>
> ...
>
> The only problem with the code above though is that I don't know how to call
> it, especially since if the user is entering a string, how would I convert
> that string into a function name? For example, if the user entered 'Rush',
> how would I call the appropriate function --> albumInfo(Rush())
>
> But if I could somehow make that code work, is it a good way to do it? I'm
> assuming if the user entered 'Rush' that only the list in the Rush() function
> would be stored, ignoring the other functions inside the albumInfo() function?
>
> I then thought maybe just using a simple if/else statement might work like so:
>
> def albumInfo(theBand):
> if theBand == 'Rush':
> return ['Rush', 'Fly By Night', 'Caress of Steel', '2112', 'A
> Farewell to Kings', 'Hemispheres']
> elif theBand == 'Enchant':
> return ['A Blueprint of the World', 'Wounded', 'Time Lost']
> ...
>
> Does anyone think this would be more efficient?
>
> I'm not familiar with how 'classes' work yet (still reading through my 'Core
> Python' book) but was curious if using a 'class' would be better suited for
> something like this? Since the user could possibly choose from 100 or more
> choices, I'd like to come up with something that's efficient as well as easy
> to read in the code. If anyone has time I'd love to hear your thoughts.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Jay
What you want is a dictionary:
albumInfo = {
'Rush': 'Rush', 'Fly By Night', 'Caress of Steel',
'2112', 'A Farewell to Kings', 'Hemispheres'],
'Enchant': ['A Blueprint of the World',
'Wounded', 'Time Lost'],
...
}
then to find the info just do:
>>> albumInfo['Enchant']
['A Blueprint of the World', 'Wounded', 'Time Lost']
It also makes it easy to add a new album on the fly:
>>> albumInfo["Lark's tongue in Aspic"] = [ ... ]
Hope that helps.
--
Arnaud
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