You can reduce your code duplication a bit. First, the way you are currently using theckin function is like this:

name = input("Enter a name").strip()name = ckin(name)

Wouldn't it be nicer to be able to do:

name = ask_user("Enter a name: ")

For this, just modify your function like this:

def ask_user(message=""):    user_input = ""    while not user_input:        user_input = input(message).strip()    return user_input

Note that I renamed it (to make it clearer what it does), used the fact that empty strings are falsy and added whitespace around the= operator, as recommended by Python's official style-guide,PEP8.

Going further, you should get into the habit of defining clearly named functions for separate things.

One such concern is getting a pre-populated username list. Currently this list is populated with user input, but this might change in the future. So it would be nice to bundle that part all together in one function:

def get_users():    # creates a users set, which always includes admin    users = {'admin'}    #Ask for 5 names to store as usernames    print('Please enter 5 unique user names: ')    while len(users) < 6:        users.add(ask_user("Enter a valid user name: ").lower())    return users

Note that I made the datastructure aset here, which gives you \$\mathcal{O}(1)\$ time complexity forin tests. I also made sure that there are actually 5 + 1 users (in other words, user names need to be unique). I also put thestr.lower transformation here so we don't need to do it later and only store the canonical user name.

Next is a login function, that asks for a username until a valid one is entered:

def login(users):    user_name = None    while user_name not in users:        user_name = ask_user("Enter login name: ").lower()    return user_name

And then, the greeting. Instead of iterating over all users until you reached the user that is currently logging in, use the fact that we already know that the user is inusers (since we explicitly checked for that inlogin). So this becomes a simpleif..else check:

def print_greeting(user_name):    if user_name == 'admin':        print('Hello admin, would you like to see a status report?')    else:        print(f'Hello {user_name}, thank you for logging in again')

Here I used anf-string, as introduced in Python 3.6, to make the string formatting a bit easier.

And finally, tying it all together in amain function:

def main():    users = get_users()    user_name = login(users)    print_greeting(user_name)if __name__ == "__main__":    main()

Note that I call thismain function only under aif __name__ == "__main__": guard. This ensures that themain function does not run if you import from this script in another script.

• \$\begingroup\$Thank you this is exciting! This is my first time seeing thewhile not and I sort of grasp the idea ofmain here, definitely going to review this and integrate these concepts.\$\endgroup\$

  vash_the_stampede

  – vash_the_stampede

  2018-08-22 14:52:13 +00:00

  CommentedAug 22, 2018 at 14:52
• \$\begingroup\$could you breakdown the use of="" in this portion of the code, I understand what is being done, checked, and returned just not what is happening with the="" in theask_user function\$\endgroup\$

  vash_the_stampede

  – vash_the_stampede

  2018-08-22 21:42:07 +00:00

  CommentedAug 22, 2018 at 21:42
• \$\begingroup\$@anthonyvalva: It just setsuser_input to a value where thewhile loop's condition is met, so the user is asked for the first time. I also could have putuser_input = input(message).strip() there as well, but that would then be repeated (so if you ever e.g. want to change that the user input is not only stripped, but also lowercased, you would need to remember to change it in both places, making it a bit harder to maintain).\$\endgroup\$

  Graipher

  – Graipher

  2018-08-22 21:44:21 +00:00

  CommentedAug 22, 2018 at 21:44
• \$\begingroup\$I'm sorry I was actually reffering to themessage='' portion what does this do?\$\endgroup\$

  vash_the_stampede

  – vash_the_stampede

  2018-08-22 21:53:50 +00:00

  CommentedAug 22, 2018 at 21:53
• 1
  \$\begingroup\$@anthonyvalva Themessage='' default keyword argument is used as input prompt in the call of theinput() built-in instead of using aprint() statement beforehand.\$\endgroup\$

  user51621

  – user51621

  2018-08-23 08:38:14 +00:00

  CommentedAug 23, 2018 at 8:38

General

Read and familiarize yourself with

• PEP8
• Functions
• Theif __name__ == '__main__': check

Make sure, the function and variable names convey their purpose.

Specific

The user input check could be done a little more pythonic:

def get_user_name():    user_name = None    while not user_name:        user_name = input().strip()    return user_name

And thus, the firstmanual reading can be omitted:

for i in range(5):    # lib_name = input().strip()  # Useless    lib_name = get_user_name()    user_names.append(lib_name)

Same here:

print('Enter login name:')  log_name = get_user_name()

For quicker lookup of data, use a hasing container:

known_user_names = frozenset(name.lower() for name in user_names)#if login name not in list continue to promptwhile log_name.lower() not in known_user_names:    print('Unknown user. Enter valid login name:')  # Add an error hint to the user.    log_name = get_user_name()

The loop here is useless:

for i in range(len(test)):    if log_name.lower() == 'admin':        print('Hello admin, would you like to see a status report?')        break    elif log_name.lower() == test[i]:        print('Hello '+user_names[i]+', thank you for logging in again')        break

Above you already made sure, that the user name is known.

if log_name.lower() == 'admin':    print('Hello admin, would you like to see a status report?')else:    print('Hello', log_name + ', thank you for logging in again')

• \$\begingroup\$going to review all this and applyt it, greatly appreciate your time!\$\endgroup\$

  vash_the_stampede

  – vash_the_stampede

  2018-08-22 14:31:52 +00:00

  CommentedAug 22, 2018 at 14:31
• \$\begingroup\$Maybe wait for some other reviews first.\$\endgroup\$

  user51621

  – user51621

  2018-08-22 14:32:29 +00:00

  CommentedAug 22, 2018 at 14:32

• python
• python-3.x