Question

I can’t seem to compare strings properly in python, what is the correct way to compare it in the if condition?

Testfile = "test.txt"
with open(TestFile) as testSet:
    line = testSet.read().rstrip('\n')
    if "#*#*# ham" or "#*#*# spam" in line: 
        print line

My test.txt something like looks like this:

#*#*# ham
foo bar bar foo bar bar bar bar
#*#*# ham
foo bar bar foo bar foo bar foo foo bar bar
#*#*# spam
foo bar foo foo bar barfoo bar foo foo bar bar
#*#*# spam
foo bar foo foo bar bar  foo foo bar bar
#*#*# ham
foo bar foo foo
#*#*# spam
foo bar foo foo bar bar  foo foo bar bar
#*#*# spam
bar foo bar foo foo bar 
#*#*# spam
bar bar foo foo

Answer 1

Do:

Testfile = "test.txt"
with open(TestFile) as testSet:
    for line in testSet:
        line = line.strip() 
        if "#*#*# ham" in line or "#*#*# spam" in line: 
            print line

instead of what you are doing. You are reading the whole file into the line variable, the way your code is.