data_excerpt.py

# The following is a gist of gist by Wray.
# We know all about loops and conditionals, so let's create a simple search by first name.

# Here's where we define our function
def find_contact_by_first_name(first_name):
    for contact in contacts:                  # and here is our for loop found within the function's block of code
        if contact[0] == first_name:
            return contact

contact = find_contact_by_first_name("John")

print
print "Contact lookup of 'John' using our custom finder"
print contact