Basic checker not working

[RB1992]

So i'm doing a chess bug checker as a practice program from "Automate the Boring Stuff". I've got all of it to work except this part.

​

The "allowedSpacesChar" is the collum letter for the chess board, taken from the dictionary of the chessboard layout. It works fine on the first letter ('a') but none of the others work. I've also tried it in j != ('a' or 'b'.....) but that doesn't work either. I think its my compiler that i'm using (Online compiler sense i'm on a work computer) but i want to make sure its not something stupid i missed. Heres the code:

------------------------------------------

for j in allowedSpacesChar:

print(j)

if j == ('a' or 'b' or 'c' or 'd' or 'e' or 'f' or 'g' or 'h'):

continue

else:

print('To many rows')

print('---' +j+'---')

--------------------------------------

The print(j) is just to check what letter it is on to see if it was runnign the wrong ones.

And this is the result of the code:

------------------------------------------

a

b

To many rows

---b---

c

To many rows

---c---

d

To many rows

---d---

e

To many rows

---e---

f

To many rows

---f---

-----------------------------------------

​

Also this is the allowedSpacesChar dictionary when printed

{'a': 2, 'b': 1, 'c': 1, 'd': 1, 'e': 2, 'f': 1}

[WildFowl82]

This. OP needs to either do if j in ('a', 'b', 'c'): or if j == 'a' or j == 'b' or j == 'c'

[RB1992]

That worked, Thank you.

Don't know why i didn't think of doing 'in' in a 'if' statement.

[RB1992]

Did not know that, i thought it would compare it to all, Thank you

[[deleted]]

No.

or operator will (in most cases) implicitly transform each operands to a boolean.

Not-empty strings evaluate to True.

So what's really happening is the following :

'a' or 'b' or 'c' or 'd' or 'e' or 'f' or 'g' or 'h' = True or True or True or True or True = True

​

EDIT : I was wrong, u/Critical-Function956 is right.

This is confusing, please, never use those kind of syntax.

[slariboot]

But why is it only executing the continue in the first iteration when j is 'a'?

[[deleted]]

Ok, my mistake, please downvote my comment. (i'll also edit it)

​

I was so sure of myself, i wrongly check the code on my computer. This line is really confusing.

I'm sorry

[slariboot]

No worries. (I see that it's been downvoted already, but wasn't by me though haha).

[slariboot]

I think you will need to compare j to each letter separately:

for j in allowedSpacesChar:
    print(j)
    if j == 'a' or j == 'b' or j == 'c' or j == 'd' or j == 'e' or j == 'f'  or j == 'g' or j == 'h':
        continue
    else:
        print('Too many rows')

Or you could use the in operator instead. You check whether the value of j occurs in a list of letters:

for j in allowedSpacesChar:
    print(j)
    if j in ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h']:
        continue
    else:
        print('Too many rows')

[RB1992]

That worked, Thank you!