Newbie question about strings

[Khalid Sheikh]

Hi,

I have been tasked to Integrate Inktomi Search (now Verity of course) 
with our website. I am fairly new to Python. The way the search 
engine is setup is that it has embedded python in a html document. 
After looking at the html code for a day or so, I was able to pin 
point the place where I need to make a change but I am having a hard 
time.

I am assuming

&$self.text(dbcol[docdb].pretty_name); 

prints something in HTML but I am trying to figure out it's 
equivalent 
in Python. I am assuming this is a string and I need to check it's 
value against another string say 'XXY' if it is equal then go ahead 
and print that value otherwise skip to the next item in the 
list/array.


This is what I had before and it worked

<!--$
first = 1
for docdb in docdbs:
if not dbcol.has_key(docdb): continue
if first: first = 0; --> <!--$
else: -->, <!--$
-->Test< &$self.text(dbcol[docdb].pretty_name); >Test<!--$
if not first: -->

when run this prints 

Test< XXY >Test, Test< ABCD >Test 

I want it to print only when the string is equal to XXY. otherwise 
skip to the next string. This is the edited code that I have so far.


<!--$
first = 1
for docdb in docdbs:
if not dbcol.has_key(docdb): continue
if first: first = 0; --> <!--$
else: -->, <!--$
# my code 
if dbcol[docdb] == <spider.Collection 'pc'> --> <!--$
# end of my code
-->Test< &$self.text(dbcol[docdb].pretty_name); >Test<!--$
if not first: -->


I get the following error when I run the program. 

exceptions.SyntaxError: invalid syntax (line 86)
Line 86
if dbcol[docdb] == <spider.Collection 'pc'> wlines.append(u' ');

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Khalid J. Sheikh
Software Engineer
Silvaco International
http://www.silvaco.com
(408) 654-4352