in
is considered a comparison operator, and from Python's documentation for them:
Comparisons can be chained arbitrarily, e.g., x < y <= z
is equivalent to x < y and y <= z
, except that y
is evaluated only once (but in both cases z
is not evaluated at all when x < y
is found to be false).
Formally, if a, b, c, ..., y, z are expressions and op1, op2, ..., opN are comparison operators, then a op1 b op2 c ... y opN z
is equivalent to a op1 b and b op2 c and ... y opN z
, except that each expression is evaluated at most once.