Find a more efficient way to code an If statement in python

Question

it's the second time I'm confronted to this kind of code :

    if "associé" in gender or "gérant" in gender or "président" in gender or "directeur" in gender:
    gen = "male"
elif "associée" in gender or "gérante" in gender or "présidente" in gender or "directrice" in gender:
    gen = "female"
else:
    gen = "error"

I'd like to find a more efficient way to write this code because it looks really bad.

What is the reason behind using in? What are possible values for gender? — tcooc
– tcooc, Commented Sep 16, 2016 at 16:09
associé for ex is not a gender. What is a gender in your code? — rafaelc
– rafaelc, Commented Sep 16, 2016 at 16:11
Because gender can be a mixt of those (ex : gender = associé gérant or gender = associé président), but the reason of the code is to be able to know if there is a "e" at the end of the word -> in french, "associé" it's a male and "associée" it's a female — jjyoh
– jjyoh, Commented Sep 16, 2016 at 16:23
Why not just check: if gender.endswith('e') ? Or do I misunderstand? — Chris_Rands
– Chris_Rands, Commented Sep 16, 2016 at 16:59

Daniel · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-16 16:15:42Z

4

Using lists and any:

males = ["associé", "gérant", "président", "directeur"]
females = ["associée", "gérante", "présidente", "directrice"]

if any(m in gender for m in males):
    gen = "male"
elif any(m in gender for m in females):
    gen = "female"
else:
    gen = "Error"

answered Sep 16, 2016 at 16:15

Daniel

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3 Comments

jjyoh Over a year ago

That's how I would have done this, but I did not know that you can use "any" ! So thank you Daniel

Copperfield Over a year ago

maybe the female check should come first, as the only difference in most of them is only a extra letter the shorted one will prove positive in the larger one "associé" in "associée" == True and I guess that is undesired

Daniel Over a year ago

@Copperfield: you're right, but this would chance the OPs result.

elethan · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-16 17:05:14Z

4

I personally like doing this with sets. For example:

opts = ["associé", "gérant", "président", "directeur"]


if set(opts) & set(gender):
...

& is used for the set intersection operation which returns a new set with the items shared by the sets on either side of the &. This will execute the if block only if there is overlap in gender and opts. You can repeat the process for your elif as well, creating a list of the possible options and checking for overlap between that list and gender. All together, you could do something like this:

male_opts = ["associé", "gérant", "président", "directeur"]
female_opts = ["associée", "gérante", "présidente", "directrice"]

if set(male_opts) & set(gender):
    gen = "male"
elif set(female_opts) & set(gender):
    gen = "female"
else:
    gen = "error"

Also, as @Copperfield points out. You could increase efficiency even more by making the *_opt variables (and potentially even gender sets to begin with:

male_opts = {"associé", "gérant", "président", "directeur"}
female_opts = {"associée", "gérante", "présidente", "directrice"}
gender = set(gender)

if male_opts & gender:
...

Edit:

The code above assumes that gender is an iterable, but it seems from the comments that it is a string instead (e.g., 'associé gérant'. Although the accepted answer is better at this point, you could still use this solution by making gender a set of the words that make up the string:

gender = set(gender.split())

edited Sep 16, 2016 at 17:05

answered Sep 16, 2016 at 16:14

elethan

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3 Comments

Copperfield Over a year ago

instead of calling set on *_opts each time, make them set from the start

Copperfield Over a year ago

looks like gender is a string, so this would not work as calling set on it will give you a set of the letters

elethan Over a year ago

@Copperfield thanks again. I didn't realize it was a string.

OneCricketeer · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-16 16:14:05Z

0

If you cannot have multiple of these stings in one gender string, maybe something like this?

gen = "error"
for g in ["associé", "gérant", "président", "directeur"]:
    if g in gender:
        gen = "male"
        break
for g in ["associée" "gérante", "présidente", "directrice"]:
    if g in gender:
        gen = "female"
        break

answered Sep 16, 2016 at 16:14

OneCricketeer

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