for in loop arithmetic

Question

operation = ['/','*','+','-']
a =5
b= 2
for op in operation:
    output = a+op+b
    print output

Here the output I get is

5/2
5*2
5+2
5-2

but I want

2.5
10
7
3

What is the way to do it?

Answer 1

The easiest way is to use a dictionary that maps the symbols to functions that perform the operation, which can be found in the operator module.

import operator
d = { '+': operator.add, '-': operator.sub, '*': operator.mul, '/': operator.div }
operation = d.keys()
a = 5
b = 2
for op in operation:
    output = d[op](a, b)
    print output