Build arcpy query to select features containing one OR another one string value?

Question

I have a table. Based of field name "TYP", I would like to select rows which contains string values "a" or "b". I need to specify the query to my arcpy code.

fc = "C:\\Users\\type_jan18.shp"
field = "TYP"
val1 = "a"
val2 = "b"

I understand how to build expression if I have one condition:

# select by one condition
whereClause = '"TYP"' + " = '" + str(val1) + "'"
# by using FieldDelimiters, again one condition
whereClause = """{} = str(val1) """.format(arcpy.AddFieldDelimiters(fc, field))

But how to correctly state it with the OR statement?

This one seems not working...

 whereClause = field + " = '" + val1 + "'"+ "or" + field + " = '" + val2 + "'"

Answer 1

Dont use +-signs, instead use format like you did with one condition. Format can take more arguments than two:

sql = """{0}='{1}' OR {0}='{2}'""".format(arcpy.AddFieldDelimiters(fc, field), val1 ,val2)

Which will give the same results as:

sql = """{0} IN('{1}', '{2}')""".format(arcpy.AddFieldDelimiters(fc, field), val1, val2)

And if you have more variables than format can handle you can place them inside a tuple:

sql = """{0} IN{1}""".format(arcpy.AddFieldDelimiters(fc, field), (val1, val2,...,val9999))