Changing variable names on the go, in Python

Question

I need help with a small part in my code, I'm a bit rusty.

It's hard to explain here but basically I need to switch between the variables, depending on their race etc., as I read through each of the records

Basically I want to rename variables as I go as there are a lot of variables for different categories, age, occupation, country, race etc..

So something like:

#(NewRecord[3] will have details of race)
if NewRecord[3] = "black"
var1 += blackcounter
else if NewRecord[3] = "white"
var1 += whitecounter`

could be:

for NewRecord[3] = "%s"
var1 += "%s"counter

??? How do I do this?

Aditional info...:

The programme I'm trying to make is an income predictor for people over and under 50k a year.

whiteCountUnder50
asianCountUnder50
indianCountUnder50
otherCountUnder50
blackCountUnder50

whiteCountOver50
asianCountOver50
indianCountOver50
otherCountOver50
blackCountOver50

#if white
overchance += (whiteCountOver50 / TotalPeopleOver)
underchance += (whiteCountUnder50 / TotalPeopleUnder)
print ("overchance: ", overchance)
print ("underchance: ", underchance)

#if black
overchance += (blackCountOver50 / TotalPeopleOver)
overchance += (blackCountUnder50 / TotalPeopleUnder)
print ("overchance: ", overchance)
print ("underchance: ", underchance)

#if asian
....

#if indian
....

etc...

Jules Gagnon-Marchand · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-03 01:17:08Z

2

you can use dictionaries for this.

container = {}
#inserting arbitrary amount of black people
container["black"] = 254
#inserting arbitrary amount of white people
container["white"] = getWhitePeople()
print(str(container["white"]))
#prints whatever getwhitePeople() returned
container.update(getPairNewCategory())
#getPairNewCategory() returns {nameOfTheCategoryStringOrHash:initialValueInt}
print(str(container[nameOfTheCategoryStringOrHash]))
#prints whatever was in initialValueInt

what you are trying to do is basically this

counter = {}
for entry in NewRecord:
    if entry in counter:
        counter[entry] += 1
    else :
        counter[entry] = 1

However, the most pythonic way to do this is :

 from collections import Counter
 c = Counter(NewRecord)
 c["BlackOver50"] = 123123 #whatever the number of BlackOver50 entries in NewRecord

edited Dec 3, 2013 at 1:17

answered Dec 3, 2013 at 1:01

Jules Gagnon-Marchand

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Troy Rockwood · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-03 01:02:15Z

0

It's not completely clear what you want to do here but I think what you want is a dictionary. Here is a link to describe them: http://docs.python.org/2/tutorial/datastructures.html

You would do something like the following:

var1 += counter[NewRecord[3]]

Hope that helps.

answered Dec 3, 2013 at 1:02

Troy Rockwood

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1 Comment

Troy Rockwood Over a year ago

Whoops, sorry about that, it should say counter[NewRecord[3]] not counter{NewRecord[3]}, I usually type it in to make sure I don't make any stupid syntax mistakes but of course didn't do it this time.

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