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Python

Posted by Miika Vuorio
Miika Vuorio
3,579 Points

Simplifying chained comparisons

My IDE is saying that the line

elif num_of_guesses_left <= 3 and num_of_guesses_left >= 2:

should be simplified. How?

1 Answer

Greg Kaleka
Greg Kaleka
39,021 Points

Hi Miika,

In Python, you can write this as:

elif 2 <= num_of_guesses_left <= 3:

Nice, huh? It's cleaner, and a bit more semantic (reads as "num_of_guesses_left is between 2 and 3, inclusive").

You could also write it as:

elif num_of_guesses_left in range(2, 4):

range returns a list of integers starting with the first argument, and up to but not including the second argument (meaning 4 would not be included). This only works if you're checking integers (which we are), since range(2, 4) returns the list [2, 3], and 2.5 is not in that list.

I find the first method a bit more readable, but both would work in this case.

Cheers :beers:

-Greg