The bisect() function is generally useful for categorizing numeric data. This example uses bisect() to look up a letter grade for an exam total (say) based on a set of ordered numeric breakpoints: 85 and up is an `A', 75..84 is a `B', etc.
>>> grades = "FEDCBA" >>> breakpoints = [30, 44, 66, 75, 85] >>> from bisect import bisect >>> def grade(total): ... return grades[bisect(breakpoints, total)] ... >>> grade(66) 'C' >>> map(grade, [33, 99, 77, 44, 12, 88]) ['E', 'A', 'B', 'D', 'F', 'A']