What is the shortest way to set a value of a variable based on user input

Question

I have some large number of boolean values e.g

bool1 = False
bool2 = False
...
booln = False

User runs the program and provides the name of a bool to be set to True. E.g python run.py bool100. Is there a way to implement it in one or few lines without having n-depth if elif statement?

Thank you

EDIT: clarification -- these are plain bool variables and I cannot convert them into dictionaries or lists

If your values are in a dict like `bools = {'bool1': False ...}`, Then simply `bools[arg] = True` — Jason, Jul 06 '19 at 20:12
@Signal they are not in dictionaries or lists and I cannot modify it — YohanRoth, Jul 06 '19 at 20:13
Related: [How do I create a variable number of variables?](https://stackoverflow.com/q/1373164/4518341) — wjandrea, Jul 06 '19 at 20:21

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 06 '19 at 20:13

Use exec to run python commands from a string

exec is a function that will let you pass a python command as a string. E.g.

exec('a = 1')
exec('print(a)') # prints 1

So the full solution is

# Create all the bools
for i in range(1, n+1):
    exec('bool{0} = False'.format(i))

# Take user input and set the bool
idx = input("Enter the bool id") # raw_input for python2
exec('bool{0} = True'.format(idx))

This has security risks in a real app. Highly discouraged. As others have mentioned, a dict should be preferred.

What is the shortest way to set a value of a variable based on user input

1 Answers1

Use exec to run python commands from a string