Simplest way to check if multiple items are (or are not) in a list? [duplicate]

Question

I want to use syntax similar to this:

if a in b

but I want to check for more than one item, so I need somthing like this:

if ('d' or 'g' or 'u') in a

but I know it doesn't work.

so I did it this way:

for i in a:
    for j in ['d','g','u']:
        if i==j

and it worked, but I wonder if there's a simpler way.

Answer 1

any and all can be used to check multiple boolean expressions.

a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
b = [1, 2, 4]

print(all(i in a for i in b)) # Checks if all items are in the list
print(any(i in a for i in b)) # Checks if any item is in the list

Answer 2

Use any plus a generator:

if any(x in d for x in [a, b, c]):

Or check for set intersection:

if {a, b, c} & set(d):