Question

In Python, I have a list of dictionaries:

mylist = [ { 'name': 'James', 'school': 'UCLA', 'date_joined': 2001 },
           { 'name': 'Jack', 'school': 'UCLA', 'date_joined': 2001 },
           { 'name': 'Fisher', 'school': 'NYU', 'date_joined': 2003 }]

How can I check whether a certain dictionary matches existing record, based only on the name and school key/values?

So:

example1 = { 'name': 'James', 'school': 'UCLA', 'date_joined': 2007 }
example1 = { 'name': 'James', 'school': 'UCLA', 'date_joined': 2001 }

should both match, but

example3 = { 'name': 'James', 'school': 'MIT', date_joined': 2001 }

should not.

There’s obviously:

for m in myList:
    if (m['name']==example['name'] and m['school']==example['school']):
        match_found = True
        continue

but is there a more compact way?

Answer 1

fields = ('name', 'school')
match_found = any(all(x[f]==example[f] for f in fields) for x in myList)