Dictionary or If statements, Jython

Question

I am writing a script at the moment that will grab certain information from HTML using dom4j.

Since Python/Jython does not have a native switch stat

Answer 1

The efficiency question is barely relevant. The dictionary lookup is done with a simple hashing technique, the if-statements have to be evaluated one at a time. Dictionaries tend to be quicker.

I suggest that you actually have polymorphic objects that do extractions from the DOM.

It's not clear how type gets set, but it sure looks like it might be a family of related objects, not a simple string.

class ExtractTitle( object ):
    def process( dom ):
        return something

class ExtractMetaTags( object ):
    def process( dom ):
        return something

Instead of setting type="extractTitle", you'd do this.

type= ExtractTitle() # or ExtractMetaTags() or ExtractWhatever()
type.process( dom )

Then, you wouldn't be building this particular dictionary or if-statement.