I ran across this and I thought there must be a better way of doing it, but then after further consideration I wasn't so sure.
if key[:1] + key[-1:] == '<>': ... Some possibilities that occurred to me: if key.startswith('<') and key.endswith('>'): ... and: if (key[:1], key[-1:]) == ('<', '>'): ... I haven't run these through a profiler yet, but it seems like the original might be the fastest after all? -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list