Determine whether a key is present in a dictionary [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
'has_key()' or 'in'?

I have a Python dictionary like :

mydict = {'name':'abc','city':'xyz','country','def'} 

I want to check if a key is in dictionary or not. I am eager to know that which is more preferable from the following two cases and why?

1> if mydict.has_key('name'): 2> if 'name' in mydict: 

Answer 1

if 'name' in mydict: 

is the preferred, pythonic version. Use of has_key() is discouraged, and this method has been removed in Python 3.