Styling multi-line conditions in 'if' statements?

You don't need to use 4 spaces on your second conditional line. Maybe use:

if (cond1 == 'val1' and cond2 == 'val2' and 
       cond3 == 'val3' and cond4 == 'val4'):
    do_something

Also, don't forget the whitespace is more flexible than you might think:

if (   
       cond1 == 'val1' and cond2 == 'val2' and 
       cond3 == 'val3' and cond4 == 'val4'
   ):
    do_something
if    (cond1 == 'val1' and cond2 == 'val2' and 
       cond3 == 'val3' and cond4 == 'val4'):
    do_something

Both of those are fairly ugly though.

Maybe lose the brackets (the Style Guide discourages this though)?

if cond1 == 'val1' and cond2 == 'val2' and \
   cond3 == 'val3' and cond4 == 'val4':
    do_something

This at least gives you some differentiation.

Or even:

if cond1 == 'val1' and cond2 == 'val2' and \
                       cond3 == 'val3' and \
                       cond4 == 'val4':
    do_something

I think I prefer:

if cond1 == 'val1' and \
   cond2 == 'val2' and \
   cond3 == 'val3' and \
   cond4 == 'val4':
    do_something

Here's the Style Guide, which (since 2010) recommends using brackets.

I've resorted to the following in the degenerate case where it's simply AND's or OR's.

if all( [cond1 == 'val1', cond2 == 'val2', cond3 == 'val3', cond4 == 'val4'] ):

if any( [cond1 == 'val1', cond2 == 'val2', cond3 == 'val3', cond4 == 'val4'] ):

It shaves a few characters and makes it clear that there's no subtlety to the condition.

Someone has to champion use of vertical whitespace here! :)

if (     cond1 == val1
     and cond2 == val2
     and cond3 == val3
   ):
    do_stuff()

This makes each condition clearly visible. It also allows cleaner expression of more complex conditions:

if (    cond1 == val1
     or 
        (     cond2_1 == val2_1
          and cond2_2 >= val2_2
          and cond2_3 != bad2_3
        )
   ):
    do_more_stuff()

Yes, we're trading off a bit of vertical real estate for clarity. Well worth it IMO.

I prefer this style when I have a terribly large if-condition:

if (
    expr1
    and (expr2 or expr3)
    and hasattr(thingy1, '__eq__')
    or status=="HappyTimes"
):
    do_stuff()
else:
    do_other_stuff()

This doesn't improve so much but...

allCondsAreOK = (cond1 == 'val1' and cond2 == 'val2' and
                 cond3 == 'val3' and cond4 == 'val4')

if allCondsAreOK:
   do_something

Here's my very personal take: long conditions are (in my view) a code smell that suggests refactoring into a boolean-returning function/method. For example:

def is_action__required(...):
    return (cond1 == 'val1' and cond2 == 'val2'
            and cond3 == 'val3' and cond4 == 'val4')

Now, if I found a way to make multi-line conditions look good, I would probably find myself content with having them and skip the refactoring.

On the other hand, having them perturb my aesthetic sense acts as an incentive for refactoring.

My conclusion, therefore, is that multiple line conditions should look ugly and this is an incentive to avoid them.

I suggest moving the and keyword to the second line and indenting all lines containing conditions with two spaces instead of four:

if (cond1 == 'val1' and cond2 == 'val2'
  and cond3 == 'val3' and cond4 == 'val4'):
    do_something

This is exactly how I solve this problem in my code. Having a keyword as the first word in the line makes the condition a lot more readable, and reducing the number of spaces further distinguishes condition from action.

Adding to what @krawyoti said... Long conditions smell because they are difficult to read and difficult to understand. Using a function or a variable makes the code clearer. In Python, I prefer to use vertical space, enclose parenthesis, and place the logical operators at the beginning of each line so the expressions don't look like "floating".

conditions_met = (
    cond1 == 'val1' 
    and cond2 == 'val2' 
    and cond3 == 'val3' 
    and cond4 == 'val4'
    )
if conditions_met:
    do_something

If the conditions need to be evaluated more than once, as in a while loop, then using a local function is best.

(I've lightly modified the identifiers as fixed-width names aren't representative of real code – at least not real code that I encounter – and will belie an example's readability.)

if (cond1 == "val1" and cond22 == "val2"
and cond333 == "val3" and cond4444 == "val4"):
    do_something

This works well for "and" and "or" (it's important that they're first on the second line), but much less so for other long conditions. Fortunately, the former seem to be the more common case while the latter are often easily rewritten with a temporary variable. (It's usually not hard, but it can be difficult or much less obvious/readable to preserve the short-circuiting of "and"/"or" when rewriting.)

Since I found this question from your blog post about C++, I'll include that my C++ style is identical:

if (cond1 == "val1" and cond22 == "val2"
and cond333 == "val3" and cond4444 == "val4") {
    do_something
}

I'm surprised not to see my preferred solution,

if (cond1 == 'val1' and cond2 == 'val2'
    and cond3 == 'val3' and cond4 == 'val4'):
    do_something

Since and is a keyword, it gets highlighted by my editor, and looks sufficiently different from the do_something below it.

"all" and "any" are nice for the many conditions of same type case. BUT they always evaluates all conditions. As shown in this example:

def c1():
    print " Executed c1"
    return False
def c2():
    print " Executed c2"
    return False


print "simple and (aborts early!)"
if c1() and c2():
    pass

print

print "all (executes all :( )"
if all((c1(),c2())):
    pass

print

What if we only insert an additional blank line between the condition and the body and do the rest in the canonical way?

if (cond1 == 'val1' and cond2 == 'val2' and
    cond3 == 'val3' and cond4 == 'val4'):

    do_something

p.s. I always use tabs, not spaces; I cannot fine-tune...

Just a few other random ideas for completeness's sake. If they work for you, use them. Otherwise, you're probably better off trying something else.

You could also do this with a dictionary:

>>> x = {'cond1' : 'val1', 'cond2' : 'val2'}
>>> y = {'cond1' : 'val1', 'cond2' : 'val2'}
>>> x == y
True

This option is more complicated, but you may also find it useful:

class Klass(object):
    def __init__(self, some_vars):
        #initialize conditions here
    def __nonzero__(self):
        return (self.cond1 == 'val1' and self.cond2 == 'val2' and
                self.cond3 == 'val3' and self.cond4 == 'val4')

foo = Klass()
if foo:
    print "foo is true!"
else:
    print "foo is false!"

Dunno if that works for you, but it's another option to consider. Here's one more way:

class Klass(object):
    def __init__(self):
        #initialize conditions here
    def __eq__(self):
        return (self.cond1 == 'val1' and self.cond2 == 'val2' and
               self.cond3 == 'val3' and self.cond4 == 'val4')

x = Klass(some_values)
y = Klass(some_other_values)
if x == y:
    print 'x == y'
else:
    print 'x!=y'

The last two I haven't tested, but the concepts should be enough to get you going if that's what you want to go with.

(And for the record, if this is just a one time thing, you're probably just better off using the method you presented at first. If you're doing the comparison in lots of places, these methods may enhance readability enough to make you not feel so bad about the fact that they are kind of hacky.)

  if cond1 == 'val1' and \
     cond2 == 'val2' and \
     cond3 == 'val3' and \
     cond4 == 'val4':
      do_something

or if this is clearer:

  if cond1 == 'val1'\
     and cond2 == 'val2'\
     and cond3 == 'val3'\
     and cond4 == 'val4':
      do_something

There is no reason indent should be a multiple of 4 in this case, e.g. see "Aligned with opening delimiter":

http://google-styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/pyguide.html?showone=Indentation#Indentation

Pardon my noobness, but it happens that I'm not as knowledgeable of #Python as anyone of you here, but it happens that I have found something similar when scripting my own objects in a 3D BIM modeling, so I will adapt my algorithm to that of python.

The problem that I find here, is double sided:

1. Values my seem foreign for someone who may try to decipher the script.
2. Code maintenance will come at a high cost, if those values are changed (most probable), or if new conditions must be added (broken schema)

Do to bypass all these problems, your script must go like this

param_Val01 = Value 01   #give a meaningful name for param_Val(i) preferable an integer
param_Val02 = Value 02
param_Val03 = Value 03
param_Val04 = Value 04   # and ... etc

conditions = 0           # this is a value placeholder

########
Add script that if true will make:

conditions = conditions + param_Val01   #value of placeholder is updated
########

### repeat as needed


if conditions = param_Val01 + param_Val02 + param_Val03 + param_Val04:
    do something

Pros of this method:

1. Script is readable.

2. Script can be easy maintained.

3. conditions is a 1 comparison operation to a sum of values that represents the desired conditions.
4. No need for multilevel conditions

Hope it help you all