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Posted by Hanna Han
Hanna Han
4,105 Points

More options in 'if' functions

Hi,

If I want to add more options in if/elif functions with "Done", "done", "DONE" how can I solve that in the best way? I think there must be users who write "done" in different way by combining lower/uppercase when they write it. For users I want to add other options.

Here is what I tried but it doesn't seem work:

def show_help(): print("What should we pick up at the store?") print(""" Enter "Done" to stop adding items. Enter "Help" for this help. """)

show_help()
while True: new_item = input("> ") if new_item == "done" or "Done" or "DONE": break elif new_item == "help" or "Help" or "HELP": show_help() continue

2 Answers

Anthony Crespo
seal-mask
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Anthony Crespo
Python Web Development Techdegree Student 12,973 Points
Anthony Crespo
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Anthony Crespo
Python Web Development Techdegree Student 12,973 Points

It doesn't work cause the if statement is always true :

def show_help():
    print("What should we pick up at the store?")
    print(""" Enter "Done" to stop adding items. Enter "Help" for this help. """)


show_help()

while True:
    new_item = input("> ")
    # This always returns True cause you only compare new_item with "done"
    # "Done" and "DONE" are not compared with new_item
    # is like saying: if new_item == "done" or True or True
    if new_item == "done" or "Done" or "DONE":
        break
    # same here
    elif new_item == "help" or "Help" or "HELP":
        show_help()
        continue

You need to compare it with each possibility like this:

if new_item == "done" or new_item == "Done" or new_item == "DONE":
    break

But that can be long if you want to cover each possibility like done, Done, dOne, doNe, etc...

What I personally do is that I use the string function .upper() on the user input when comparing. Upper return a copy of the string converted to uppercase. And then I only need to compare the user input with the word "DONE" in uppercase

Your code with the upper function will look like this:

def show_help():
    print("What should we pick up at the store?")
    print(""" Enter "Done" to stop adding items. Enter "Help" for this help. """)


show_help()

while True:
    new_item = input("> ")

    if new_item.upper() == "DONE":
        break

    elif new_item.upper() == "HELP":
        show_help()
        continue

Now your code work with all the possibilities of "done" and "help" and will be a lot more easier to maintain. Like if you want to change Done to Exit, you can do it without writing all the possibilities again. Hope this help.

Hanna Han
Hanna Han
4,105 Points
Hanna Han
Hanna Han
4,105 Points

Thank you so much. It helped a lot :)