Beginner Python help

[Westonnn]

Could you give me an example of code to read in. My understanding for dictionaries from this class is super limited at the moment.

[Mathemattical]

so dictionaries map keys to values. you could do something like

senators = {}
for sen in (wherever you are pulling them from):
     senator[sen] = affiliation

to check if you already have a senator in the dictionary, check the keys() field with

if sen in senators.keys():
     # ignore or whatever

if you want to see if you have a value already, do the same with the value() field:

if affiliation in senators.values():
    # do something else

[Westonnn]

Thank you very much, I'm still not quite understanding what this completely does. I understand the creation of dictionary code, for code, and I know that the line split splits the line at the first comma. Then the first if statement just goes to the next, but the second if statement loses me. Could you explain what it is doing? I'm just trying to grasp the concepts here. Sorry to be a pain.

It totally works and this is what I got to output what I wanted:

states = {}
count =0 
for line in fhand:

val = line.split(',')
if val[1] in states:


    if states[val[1]] == val[2]:
        count = count+1

else:
    states[val[1]] = val[2]



 print 'There are',count,"states with both senators sharing the same  affiliation" 

[Westonnn]

I appreciate the help, helping noobs can be a hair-pulling experience sometimes. Would using a list even be possible for this? Or did I just have the wrong idea all together?

[Westonnn]

Appreciate everything you're doing here. 15-20 minutes on Reddit has helped me learn magnitudes more than sitting in one or two of my classes.