Conditional statements with more than 1 word in the same variable

Question

I am trying to create a variable based in various business rules from another variable. Please see example below. When I am dealing with only one word I need to use as a condition I use the following code:

  physical = ['light', 'sedentary', 'medium', 'heavy']

  def matcher(x):
      for i in physical:
          if i.lower() in x.lower():
             return i
          else:
             return 'other'

My issue is when that are multiple words that match in a sentence, in this specific cases I want to call mix . For example if more than one of the words appear in a sentence as on the first sentence then 'mix'

  Physical Demand                                          Result
    Light to medium with occasional heavy  levels           mix                        
    Light lifting                                           light
    Medium effort required when lifting                     medium

tks.

Answer 1

You'll want to track if you have previously seen another value rather than returning the first value seen

For example

 def matcher(x):
    val = None
    for p in physical:
        for y in x.split():  # assuming x is a string 
            if p == y.lower():  # physical elements are already lowercase 
                if val is not None: 
                    # val already has a value, so you have more than one physical element in x 
                    return 'mix' 
                val = p
        return val if val else 'other'

Answer 2

You need to check all item to return mix instead of directly return after just check one item. Next is a workable code, FYI.

physical = ['light', 'sedentary', 'medium', 'heavy']

def matcher(x):
    l = [item for item in physical if item.lower() in x.lower()]
    length = len(l)

    if length == 0:
        return 'other'
    elif length == 1:
        return l[0]
    else:
        return 'mix'

print(matcher('Light to medium with occasional heavy  levels'))
print(matcher('Light'))
print(matcher('Medium'))
print(matcher('abcde'))

Output:

mix
light
medium
other