Shorten sequence of if statements

I have this code.

c = getch()
if c == "r":       开发者_如何学编程                                                            
  return randrange(101, len(mylist) - 1) 
if c == "u":                                                        
  return 100               
if c == "b":      
  return -2                
if c == "w":    
  return -3                
if c == "m":
  return -4                
if c == "d":
  return -5                
if c == "e":
  return -6                
if c == "k":
  return -7
if c == "g":
  return -8
if c == "p":
  return -9
if c == "o":
  right = center - 1       
else:                      
  left = center + 1

Can I make this code snippet more compact? How would you write it better?

thank you

You can use a dictionary:

# Special case.
if c == "r":                                                                   
    return randrange(101, len(list) - 1) 

# This is constant. It could be generated once at program start.
d = { 'u' : 100, ...., 'p' : -9 }

# This covers the majority of the cases.
if c in d:
    return d[c]

# Some more special cases.
if c == "o":
   right = center - 1       
else:                      
   left = center + 1

I agree that a dictionary is the way to go. The problem with Mark's answer is that the dictionary gets rebuilt for every function call. The way around is to define the dict outside the function:

def foo():
    c = getch()
    if c in foo.mydict:
        return foo.mydict[c]
    else:
        # TODO: special cases

foo.mydict = {'u':100, ... , 'p':-9}

# foo is now ready to use

You should strongly consider renaming your list variable to something that isn't already used.

...
c=getch()
if c=="r":
    return randrange(101, len(mylist) - 1)

return dict(u=100, b=-2, w=-3, m=-4, d=-5, e=-6, k=-7, g=-8, p=-9, o=center-1).get(c, center+1)