On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 09:16:42 -0700, cbr...@cbrownsystems.com wrote: > It's clear but tedious to write: > > if 'monday" in days_off or "tuesday" in days_off: > doSomething > > I currently am tending to write: > > if any([d for d in ['monday', 'tuesday'] if d in days_off]): > doSomething
Use a simple generator expression and any. if any(day in days_off for day in ['monday', 'tuesday']): doSomething You (partially) defeat the short-circuiting behaviour of any() by using a list comprehension. If you have a lot of items to test against, make days_off a set instead of a list, which makes each `in` test O(1) instead of O(N). For small N, the overhead of creating the set is probably going to be bigger than the saving, so stick to a list. Other than that, doing set operations is overkill -- it obfuscates the intention of the code for very little gain, and possibly negative gain. And as for the suggestion that you create a helper class to do the work, that's surely the recommended way to do it in Java rather than Python. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list