How to replace elements in a list using dictionary lookup (list as values in dict)

Question

With my code, I would like to return the key for every value in a list of values of a dict. For the following code, I get the category list returned which is longer than my creditaccounts list. The desired result is:

category = ['supermarket', 'supermarket', 'unknown', 'self', 'unknown']

I struggle with the loop and the 'unknown' element.

creditaccounts = ['ALBERT HEIJN 1654 ROTTERDAM NLD', 'Jumbo 199730 TILBURG NLD','10-04-14 22:38 GELDAUTOMAAT', 'ING Bank', 'Desposit']

self = ['ING Bank', 'Van Bonusrenterekening']
bank = ['Kosten OranjePakket']
supermarket = ['ALBERT HEIJN 1654 ROTTERDAM NLD', 
                'Jumbo 199730 TILBURG NLD', 'Albert Heijn 1617', 
                'Jumbo Rotterdam ROTTERDAM NLD',
                'DIRK VDBROEK FIL4014 ROTTERDAM']

dict_cat = {'self' : self
            ,'bank' : bank
            , 'supermarket': supermarket}

category = []

for creditaccount in creditaccounts:
    for cat, val in dict_cat.items():
        if creditaccount in val:
            category.append(cat)
        else:
            category.append('unknown')
            
category

Answer 1

In your inner loop you have an if-else statement and in the else you are appending "unknown" to your list. This causes "unknown" to be appended each iteration if condition does not match.
Try breaking out of the loop and an else:

creditaccounts = ['ALBERT HEIJN 1654 ROTTERDAM NLD', 'Jumbo 199730 TILBURG NLD','10-04-14 22:38 GELDAUTOMAAT', 'ING Bank', 'Desposit']

self = ['ING Bank', 'Van Bonusrenterekening']
bank = ['Kosten OranjePakket']
supermarket = ['ALBERT HEIJN 1654 ROTTERDAM NLD', 
                'Jumbo 199730 TILBURG NLD', 'Albert Heijn 1617', 
                'Jumbo Rotterdam ROTTERDAM NLD',
                'DIRK VDBROEK FIL4014 ROTTERDAM']

dict_cat = {'self' : self
            ,'bank' : bank
            , 'supermarket': supermarket}

category = []

for creditaccount in creditaccounts:
    for cat, val in dict_cat.items():
        if creditaccount in val:
            category.append(cat)
            break
    else:
        category.append('unknown')

Answer 2

1. or you can run this code to achieve your goal.

creditaccounts = ['ALBERT HEIJN 1654 ROTTERDAM NLD', 'Jumbo 199730 TILBURG NLD','10-04-14 22:38 GELDAUTOMAAT', 'ING Bank', 'Desposit']

self = ['ING Bank', 'Van Bonusrenterekening']
bank = ['Kosten OranjePakket']
supermarket = ['ALBERT HEIJN 1654 ROTTERDAM NLD', 
                'Jumbo 199730 TILBURG NLD', 'Albert Heijn 1617', 
                'Jumbo Rotterdam ROTTERDAM NLD',
                'DIRK VDBROEK FIL4014 ROTTERDAM']

dict_cat = {'self' : self
            ,'bank' : bank
            , 'supermarket': supermarket}

category = []
for creditaccount in creditaccounts:
    node = False
    for k, v in dict_cat.items():
        if creditaccount in v:
            category.append(k)
            node = True
    if node == False:
        category.append('unknown')
    
            
category

Answer 3

I think now it should work now,

Code Syntax

for cat in dict_cat.keys():
    for creditaccount in creditaccounts:
        if creditaccount in dict_cat[cat]:
            category.append(cat)
        else:
            category.append('unknown')

Explanation

What you're looking for is to check creditaccounts values in each list of the dict_cat .

If the value found append 'the dict key of this list', else append 'unknown',

Output

['unknown', 'unknown', 'unknown', 'self', 'unknown', 'unknown', 
'unknown', 'unknown', 'unknown', 'unknown', 'supermarket', 
'supermarket', 'unknown', 'unknown', 'unknown']

[Program finished]

According to this results,

self [list]: only element[3] found into the `creditsaccounts`.

Bank [list]: no value matched with the `creditsaccounts` list, so the whole values appeneded as 'unknown'.

supermarket [list]: its elements -> element[0], element[1].