Optimize long if statement in Python

Question

I have a if statement inside a loop that sets a variable to a specific country name if it matches the condition, that is, if the parameter contains the country name.

The parameters are a list of paths that contain a country name in different positions, i.e. C:\\some\\path\\text_country_text.xlsx or C:\\some\\path\\text_text_country_text.xlsx

The if statement is pretty long at the moment because it checks a rather long list of countries. The code I wrote works but it does not look really optimized. Is there a shorter way to do this?

def my_function(*args): 
    for country in args:
        if "Australia" in country:
            country_name = "Australia"
        elif "Austria" in country:
            country_name = "Austria"
        # etc. for many countries

If the country name is in the same position within the paths then just extract it, perhaps comparing it to a list (or dictionary) of the names. — Andy G
– Andy G, Commented Feb 26, 2018 at 10:45
Of course this is hugely inefficient, but it would help if you specify more clearly what exactly is the required input and output of the function. — Cong Ma
– Cong Ma, Commented Feb 26, 2018 at 10:45
@CongMa The input is a list of paths to Excel country tables. The function is supposed to be an automation for inserting values from these tables to a global/general Excel table. This works. I have to put the names of the countries in a column next to the repsective values. I get all values from the tables but the country name is only in the paths and not in the tables. — NK_
– NK_, Commented Feb 26, 2018 at 10:54

Chris_Rands · Accepted Answer · 2018-02-26 10:47:37Z

4

Assuming you don't know exactly where the country name is within your country string (so you can't use slicing or a regex to extract the relevant portion), you could adapt your approach to take a list of countries, and then use a generator expression with next() to extract the country name:

next((c_name for c_name in countries if c_name in country), 'Unknown')

Examples:

>>> countries = ['Australia', 'Austria']
>>> country = '#Austrian_man#'
>>> next((c_name for c_name in countries if c_name in country), 'Unknown')
'Austria'
>>> country = '#AustrTYPO_man#'
>>> next((c_name for c_name in countries if c_name in country), 'Unknown')
'Unknown'

answered Feb 26, 2018 at 10:47

Chris_Rands

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1 Comment

NK_ Over a year ago

Thanks! I haven't known about next() so far. I will definitely look into it.

Susmit · Accepted Answer · 2018-02-26 10:59:36Z

2

You could do: Countries = [ all countries] Code:

for country in args:
  for i in Countries:
        if i in country:
          country_name = i

edited Feb 26, 2018 at 10:59

answered Feb 26, 2018 at 10:52

Susmit

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1 Comment

NK_ Over a year ago

Many thanks! I haven't thought about this simple solution.

JohanL · Accepted Answer · 2018-02-26 13:25:23Z

1

Just for the fun of it, and to show the power of sets, it is possible to solve this with only one for loop and a set.intersection() call:

def my_function(*args):
    countries = set(['Austria', 'Australia', 'Brazil', 'Denmark'])
    for country_name in countries.intersection(args):
        print(country_name)

Thus, the loop will only loop over countries that are both among the input arguments and in the predefined countries set.

answered Feb 26, 2018 at 13:25

JohanL

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1 Comment

NK_ Over a year ago

Thanks! I might adjust my code according to this. My input are 140 Excel tables. It is probably a good idea to be more efficient.

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