How can you search for an item in a list - python

Question

This is probably a very simple program but I tried to find an item in a list (in python) and it just doesn't seem to work.

I made a simple list called Names and had variables:

found=False
index=0

I made another variable Searchname that contains a user entered string (a name) although there seems to be an error.

while found==False and index<=(len(Names)-1):
    index=index + 1
    if Searchname==Names[index]:
        found=True

        print('Found')

    else:
        print('Not found')

I tried searching for an answer online but they were really complicated and I really hope that there might be some manageable solutions here.

If you want to find exactly where in the list your name is, use `list.index()` function. See [Finding the index of an item in a list](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/176918/finding-the-index-of-an-item-in-a-list). If you only want to test if it's in the list or not, use `in` — smci, Mar 24 '20 at 06:35
Do you know about `if Searchname in Names: print('Found') else: print('Not Found')` ? — Austin, Mar 24 '20 at 06:35
Also, in Python we always name variables lowercase: `names, searchname`. And please show us the contents of `names` . — smci, Mar 24 '20 at 06:36

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 24 '20 at 06:40

1

you can use the in operator simply to check if one element exists or not.

item in my_list

answered Mar 24 '20 at 06:40

teddcp

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 24 '20 at 06:38

Generally to check if an item is in a list you could as Python to check for that. But this would be case-sensitive. Otherwise you would have to lowercase the list first.

names = ['Mike', 'John', 'Terry']
if 'Mike' in names:
    print ("Found")
else:
    print ("Not Found")

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 24 '20 at 06:45

0

You can use the in operator to search elements in a list. it will return True if that element is present in the list else False.

if Searchname in Names:
    found=True
    print('Found')
else:
    print('Not found')

answered Mar 24 '20 at 06:45

Prudhvi

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score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 24 '20 at 06:54

This is one of the simplest ways to find the index of an item in a list. I'll use an example to explain this. Suppose we have a list of fruits(List_Of_Fruits) and we need to find the index of a fruit(Fruit_To_Search),we can use the given code.

The main part is the function index() its syntax is list.index(item) this will give the index of 'item' in 'list'

#A list with a bunch of items(in this case fruits)
List_Of_Fruits = ["Apples" , "Bananas" , "Cherries" , "Melons"]

#Getting an input from the user
Fruit_To_Search = input()

#You can use 'in' to check if something is in a list or string
if Fruit_To_Search in List_Of_Fruits:
  #If the fruit to find is in the list,
  Fruit_Index = List_Of_Fruits.index(Fruit_To_Search)
  #List_Of_Fruits.index(Fruit_to_Search) gives the index of the variable Fruit_to_Search in the list List_Of_Fruits
  print(Fruit_To_Search,"exists in the list. Its index is - ",Fruit_Index)
  
else:
  print(Fruit_To_Search,"does not exist in the list"

How can you search for an item in a list - python

4 Answers4

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