python `in` operator use cases

Python *in* operator is membership test operator.*Examples:*List—-


In [1]: python_webframeworks = ['flask', 'django', 'pylons', 'pyramid', 'brubeck']

In [2]: 'flask' in python_webframeworks

Out[2]: True

In [3]: 'web.py' in python_webframeworks

Out[3]: False

in operator iterates over the list of elements and returns True or False.

What about nested list?



In [4]: webframeworks = [['flask', 'django', 'pyramid'],['rails', 'sintara'],['zend', 'symfony']]

In [5]: 'flask' in webframeworks
Out[5]: False

in isnt handy for nested list, unless it is overriden.

Dict

in operator against dictionary checks for the presence of key.


In [7]: person = {'name': 'kracekumar', 
'country': 'India', 'os': 'Linux', 
'programming_languages': {'web': 'php', 'multi_paradigm': ['python', 'ruby', 'java', 'c#']}}

In [8]: 'name' in person

Out[8]: True

in doesnt check inside key if value is dict


In [9]: 'web' in person

Out[9]: False

In case if dict needs to look into keys whose value is dict, you need to override __contains__. At the end of the blog post I will explain, now lets create a class which is inherited from dict and try the same experiment.



In [10]: class Person(dict):
   ....:     pass
   ....: 

In [11]: p = Person()

In [12]: p

Out[12]: {}

In [13]: p['name'] = 'krace'

In [14]: p

Out[14]: {'name': 'krace'}

To make things simple __init__ and other magic methods are omitted.


In [15]: 'name' in p

Out[15]: True

Set


In [16]: conferences_attended = set(['Pycon - India', 'code retreat', 'JSFOO', 'Meta Refresh']) 

In [17]: 'Pycon - India' in conferences_attended

Out[17]: True

Generators


In [18]: 2 in xrange(3)

Out[18]: True

Nested list


In [19]: nested_list = [[1, 3, 5, 7], [2, 4, 6, 8], []]

In [20]: [] in nested_list

Out[20]: True

In [21]: [2, 4, 6, 8] in nested_list

Out[21]: True

In case of nested list checking whether inner list is empty is pretty handy.

Strings


In [23]: message = " Python is simple and powerful programming language "

In [24]: "Python" in message

Out[24]: True

In [25]: message.find("Python")

Out[25]: 1

In [26]: message = "Python is simple and powerful programming language "

In [27]: message.find("Python")

Out[27]: 0

in can be used to check the presence of a sequence or substring against string. In other languages there will be function to check for substring, but in python its very straightforward. This is one of the reason why I love Python.

NOTE:

Dont use find method in string to find the existence of a substring because it will return the position.


if message.find(text):
      #lets do what we need do
else:
      #fall back

Above snippet is wrong since text might be present in the beginning which will result 0 and if condition will fail.

Files


In [29]: with open('test.txt', 'w') as f:

     f.write(" some text for checking")
   ....: 

In [32]: with open('test.txt', 'r') as f:

     for text in f:

         print 'some' in text
   ....:         
True

overriding `contains`

Consider a class Person which is inherited from dict and override __contains__



In [153]: class Person(dict):
   .....:     def __contains__(self, item):
   .....:         for key in self:
   .....:             if key is item:
   .....:                 return True
   .....:             else:
   .....:                 if isinstance(self[key], dict):
   .....:                     for k in self[key]:
   .....:                         if k is item:
   .....:                             return True
   .....:         else:
   .....:             return False
   .....:         

In [154]: p = Person()

In [155]: p['skills'] = {'programming_languages': {'web': ['php'], 'multi_paradigm':
['python', 'ruby', 'c#']}
}

In [156]: 'skills' in p

Out[156]: True

In [157]: 'programming_languages' in p

Out[157]: True

In [158]: 'web' in p

Out[158]: False

In the above example key will be looked for two level dict only.

python in operator