In article <4cc09129-43ee-4205-a24c-03f92b594abc at googlegroups.com>, forman.simon at gmail.com wrote: > I ran across this and I thought there must be a better way of doing it, but > then after further consideration I wasn't so sure. >> if key[:1] + key[-1:] == '<>': ... >>> Some possibilities that occurred to me: >> if key.startswith('<') and key.endswith('>'): ... >> and: >> if (key[:1], key[-1:]) == ('<', '>'): ... if re.match(r'^<.*>$', key): sheesh. (if you care how fast it is, pre-compile the pattern)