Question

Why does this not work:

            file = "v3a2"
            if "v1" or "v2" in file:
                v1.write(total)
            elif "v3" in file:
                print "never here?????"

How to formulate this?

Answer 1

        if "v1" or "v2" in file:

is equivalent to

        if ("v1") or ("v2" in file):

Which will always be True because bool("v1")==True

you could say

        if any(x in file for x in ["v1", "v2"]):

or

        if "v1" in file or "v2" in file:

The version with any looks nicer if there are more than 2 or 3 items to check