Why isn't my if condition always executing and not the elif or else condition?

Question

I can't get my head around this particular if..else statement:

print("Do you want to run the next bit of code? Y/N")
n = input()

if n == "Y" or "y":
    j = [12, 43, 54, 65]
    for i in j:
        print (i, end="" "\t")

elif n == "N" or "n":
    print("You get numbers if you had pressed Y")

else:
    print("That's not an option")

My problem here is, whatever the value I give for n, it always gives me the output of Y or y. I always get the output as the array numbers. Which means that my condition is not working. So what is actually the problem with the first condition?

you need to do `if n == "Y" or n == "y"` otherwise "y" evaluates always to True. Alternatively you can do something like: `if n in ("Y", "y")` which is more compact and allows you to put a large number of characters to be checked — Sembei Norimaki, Nov 06 '19 at 12:22
@SembeiNorimaki any particular reason why you used a tuple? It works equally well with a list. Thanks. — Neeraj Hanumante, Nov 06 '19 at 12:29
you can write if n.lower() =="y" and same for elif condition. it will work — Sanket Patel, Nov 06 '19 at 12:29
@Neeraj no particular reason. A list works also fine, both options are correct — Sembei Norimaki, Nov 06 '19 at 12:33

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 06 '19 at 12:26

Check this. The following code works.

print("Do you want to run the next bit of code? Y/N")
n = input()
if n in ["Y", "y"]:
    j = [12, 43, 54, 65]
    for i in j:
        print (i, end="" "\t")
elif n in ["N", "n"]:
    print("You get numbers if you had pressed Y")
else:
    print("That's not an option")

Why isn't my if condition always executing and not the elif or else condition?

1 Answers1