Python comparing unicode string to string?

Question

I've searched around and tried to .encode(...) the string, but I can't imagine this issues is as serious as it seems.

I have two datastructures, one is loaded from a YAML file, the other from a JSON file.

Both contents have been processed (I'm iterating over the data):

Dictionary of YAML

[{'SynID': 66, 'action': 'userInit', 'appLocation': 0},
 {'SynID': 66, 'action': 'isEngager', 'appLocation': 0}]

Dictionary of JSON

{u'name': u'SynID', u'value': u'66'}
...
{u'name': u'action', u'value': u'isEngager'}

Finally, when doing the comparision, anything involving an integer (non string) fails. For example:

    if uriDict['name'] in expectedResultsSubDict and uriDict['value'] == expectedResultsSubDict[uriDict['name']]:
                Logger().l("[%s] Match: %s:%s == %s" % (pos, uriDict['name'], uriDict['value'], expectedResultsSubDict[uriDict['name']]))
    elif uriDict['name'] in expectedResultsSubDict:
         Logger().l("[%s] Name: %s, value: %s" % (pos, uriDict['name'], uriDict['value']))

The first if statement fails to match the key/value of SynID:66, but will match the second entry, action:isEngager.

2013-01-28 12:48:42,151 : DEBUG : [0] Name: SynID, value: 66
2013-01-28 12:48:42,151 : DEBUG : [0] Match: action:userInit == userInit

As you can see in the output, it doesn't match the SynID, but matches the action.

If I add in this line:

elif uriDict['name'] in expectedResultsSubDict and int(uriDict['value']) == int(expectedResultsSubDict[uriDict['name']]):
    Logger().l("[%s] Int Match: %s:%s == %s" % (pos, uriDict['name'], uriDict['value'], expectedResultsSubDict[uriDict['name']]))

It will work properly on the SynID (and other field that have ints) but fail on the string fields. I also tried changing the '==' comparison to 'is', and in that case, nothing matched.

Q) How do I compare the values of my dictionary?

Anton I. Sipos · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-28 18:03:03Z

2

You're comparing 66 to '66', which are not equal - one is an int and one is a string. Python does no implicit conversions between types, owing to its philosophy of 'explicit is better than implicit' . To get it to work, I'd convert both to string first and then compare, like so

if uriDict['name'] in expectedResultsSubDict and str(uriDict['value']) == str(expectedResultsSubDict[uriDict['name']]):

answered Jan 28, 2013 at 18:03

Anton I. Sipos

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1 Comment

mr-sk Over a year ago

Thanks, that works. I have to convert all items because I don't know which are ints and which are not.

Anton Kovalenko · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-28 18:02:11Z

0

There is no problem with unicode strings here: you're comparing a string to integer, and getting False because, um, one of them is string and another one integer.

You can convert a value to integer with int(my_value_which_is_string_or_number).

answered Jan 28, 2013 at 18:02

Anton Kovalenko

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2 Comments

mr-sk Over a year ago

Yes, I get that. I even stated that's the problem. However, I don't know which field the is an int ... so how can I convert to an int, if I don't the field is suppose to be an int ... ? What I'm asking is more of a pattern question - what pattern would you apply to solve this solution. I don't have this problem in other languages.

Anton Kovalenko Over a year ago

Another answer about converting anything to string is better for you.

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