just in case.py

from __future__ import print_function

switch = {"case 1": lambda: print("Hey, case 1"),
          42: lambda: print("The answer to life, the universe, and everything"),
          "spam": lambda: print("A favourite metasyntactic variable of Pythonistas everywhere"),
          "fnord": lambda: print("You can't see the fnords."),
         }
         
val = "spam"
switch[val]()