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Python

Posted by Karen Kozlosky
Karen Kozlosky
1,027 Points

.lower() and .upper() in if: else: statements

I am a little confused with the logic of .lower() in the if: statement here. if should_proceed.lower() == "y" I understand what is being done, but am just confused on when to use .lower() vs. .upper().

So if we add .lower() , uppercase input will be accepted. if I change it to .upper(), uppercase input is not accepted.

This just seems backwards to me. What are .lower() and .upper() doing "under the hood". How do I know when to use them?

Also, is there just another function that can be used to cover all case discrepancies?

Karen Kozlosky
Karen Kozlosky
1,027 Points

Thanks for taking the time to answer. That helps.

1 Answer

Travis Alstrand
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STAFF
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Travis Alstrand
Treehouse Teacher
Travis Alstrand
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Travis Alstrand
Treehouse Teacher

Hey there Karen Kozlosky !

I guess that this would all depend on what your preference is. It sounds like this is checking against some user input. So by adding .lower() it's going to work whether the user has typed in Y or y. You could do the same with upper in this scenario and instead check 

if should_proceed.upper() == "Y"

If you were dealing with, for example, a user's search input, it would then depend on how the data we're searching through is stored. Most of the time with things like this it would be all lowercase or how we would normally write & capitalize things. If the latter is the case, then we'd simply have to add .lower() or .upper() to both the user's input and the string we're comparing it to.

I hope this helps clear things up! :smiley: