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Python Introducing Lists Using Lists Continental

Posted by Caroline Louw
Caroline Louw
12,155 Points

I am trying to find out if A is in my list in python. What is wrong with my code?

How do I index a character in a string using a for loop?

continents.py 
continents = [
    'Asia',
    'South America',
    'North America',
    'Africa',
    'Europe',
    'Antarctica',
    'Australia',
]
# Your code here
for continents[0] in continents:
    if "A" in continents:
        print(continents)

4 Answers

Evaristus Okafor
Evaristus Okafor
1,405 Points

Maybe you want to loop through a list and print only the continents whose name starts with "A". Another way to do it is to use the equality operator, "==". 

for continent in continents:
   if continent[0] == "A":
       print(continent)

But is some of the continents starts with lower case for "asia", You will not be able to get it because pything is case sensitive. so to be sure you get all the continents whose name starts with "A" or "a". 

for continent in continents:
    if continent[0].upper() == "A":
        print(continent)
Jesus Reyes
Jesus Reyes
1,946 Points

Im deleting my answer, this is WAY better!!, it makes no sense to try find a match to a single character using in and also setting the character to upper or even lower at the moment of comparison will make sure you get a match regardless of how is written on the list.

Jeff Muday
MOD
Jeff Muday
Treehouse Moderator 28,720 Points
Jeff Muday
Jeff Muday
Treehouse Moderator 28,720 Points

You seem to get the concept-- the syntax is a little different.

# continent is used as the current continent with looping through continents
for continent in continents:
    if "A" in continent:
        print(continent)
Jeff Muday
MOD
Jeff Muday
Treehouse Moderator 28,720 Points
Jeff Muday
Jeff Muday
Treehouse Moderator 28,720 Points

One of the things that I love about programming is there are many ways to get the same result. For example, some people like a solution that "reads" well (i.e. self documenting code).

for continent in continents:
    if continent.startswith("A"):
        print(continent)
Caroline Louw
Caroline Louw
12,155 Points
Caroline Louw
Caroline Louw
12,155 Points

Thank you guys. This helps