Programmatically generate if elif elif elif else
<p>I would like to condense some wet code that looks like this:</p>

<pre><code>if slips[i] &lt; 3000:
    ac.setBackgroundColor(wheel['slip'], 0, 0, 0)
    # setBackgroundOpacity deliberately omitted here
elif slips[i] &lt; 3700:
    ac.setBackgroundColor(wheel['slip'], .2, .4, .2)
    ac.setBackgroundOpacity(wheel['slip'], 1)
elif slips[i] &lt; 4100:
    ac.setBackgroundColor(wheel['slip'], 0, 1, 0)
    ac.setBackgroundOpacity(wheel['slip'], 1)
elif slips[i] &lt; 4500:
    ac.setBackgroundColor(wheel['slip'], 0, 0, 1)
    ac.setBackgroundOpacity(wheel['slip'], 1)
else:
    ac.setBackgroundColor(wheel['slip'], 1, 0, 0)
    ac.setBackgroundOpacity(wheel['slip'], 1)
</code></pre>

<p>Each time this snippet of code is repeated, the only things that change are the background canvas (<code>wheel['slip']</code> in this case), and the numbers in the if elif else's.</p>

<p>My first thought to dry this up was to make something that could be used like this:</p>

<pre><code>if_replacer(wheel['slip'], slips[i], 3000, 3700, 4100, 4500)

def if_replacer(canvas, value, *args):
    # idunno
</code></pre>

<p>My question is, how would I programmatically generate the if elif else's? I know I could hard-code it like so:</p>

<pre><code>def if_replacer(canvas, value, c1, c2, c3, c4):
    if value &lt; c1:
        ac.setBackgroundColor(canvas, 0, 0, 0)
        return
    elif value &lt; c2:
        ac.setBackgroundColor(canvas, .2, .4, .2)
    elif value &lt; c3:
        ac.setBackgroundColor(canvas, 0, 1, 0)
    elif value &lt; c4:
        ac.setBackgroundColor(canvas, 0, 0, 1)
    else:
        ac.setBackgroundColor(canvas, 1, 0, 0)
    ac.setBackgroundOpacity(canvas, 1)
</code></pre>

<p>But I'm interested if there is a succinct and Pythonic method to accomplish this.</p>

<p>edit: A lot of excellent answers, but alas I can only mark one of them as accepted (though all valid solutions were upvoted). I accepted the answer that I implemented in my code, but for anyone else who stumbles across this question, do take a look at the other solutions, they're all excellent. And, thanks to everyone who wrote an answer.</p>

<pre><code>c = [[0,0,0],[.2,.4,.2],[0,1,0],[0,0,1]]
threshold = [3000,3700,4100,4500]
if slips[i] &gt;= 4500:
    ac.setBackgroundColor(wheel['slip'],1,0,0)
else:
    for x in range(4):
        if slips[i] &lt; threshold[x]:
            ac.setBackgroundColor(wheel['slip'],c[x][0],c[x][1],c[x][2])
            break
if slips[i] &gt;= 3000:
    ac.setBackgroundOpacity(wheel['slip'], 1)
</code></pre>

<p>This is one alternative, but I do personally prefer @mpurg's answer.</p>

python if-statement dry