"x not in y" or "not x in y"

Solution 1:

They always give the same result.

In fact, not 'ham' in 'spam and eggs' appears to be special cased to perform a single "not in" operation, rather than an "in" operation and then negating the result:

>>> import dis

>>> def notin():
    'ham' not in 'spam and eggs'
>>> dis.dis(notin)
  2           0 LOAD_CONST               1 ('ham')
              3 LOAD_CONST               2 ('spam and eggs')
              6 COMPARE_OP               7 (not in)
              9 POP_TOP             
             10 LOAD_CONST               0 (None)
             13 RETURN_VALUE    

>>> def not_in():
    not 'ham' in 'spam and eggs'
>>> dis.dis(not_in)
  2           0 LOAD_CONST               1 ('ham')
              3 LOAD_CONST               2 ('spam and eggs')
              6 COMPARE_OP               7 (not in)
              9 POP_TOP             
             10 LOAD_CONST               0 (None)
             13 RETURN_VALUE    

>>> def not__in():
    not ('ham' in 'spam and eggs')
>>> dis.dis(not__in)
  2           0 LOAD_CONST               1 ('ham')
              3 LOAD_CONST               2 ('spam and eggs')
              6 COMPARE_OP               7 (not in)
              9 POP_TOP             
             10 LOAD_CONST               0 (None)
             13 RETURN_VALUE        

>>> def noteq():
    not 'ham' == 'spam and eggs'
>>> dis.dis(noteq)
  2           0 LOAD_CONST               1 ('ham')
              3 LOAD_CONST               2 ('spam and eggs')
              6 COMPARE_OP               2 (==)
              9 UNARY_NOT           
             10 POP_TOP             
             11 LOAD_CONST               0 (None)
             14 RETURN_VALUE      

I had thought at first that they always gave the same result, but that not on its own was simply a low precedence logical negation operator, which could be applied to a in b just as easily as any other boolean expression, whereas not in was a separate operator for convenience and clarity.

The disassembly above was revealing! It seems that while not obviously is a logical negation operator, the form not a in b is special cased so that it's not actually using the general operator. This makes not a in b literally the same expression as a not in b, rather than merely an expression that results in the same value.

Solution 2:

1. No, there is no difference.

   The operator not in is defined to have the inverse true value of in.

   —Python documentation

2. I would assume not in is preferred because it is more obvious and they added a special case for it.

Solution 3:

They are identical in meaning, but the pycodestyle Python style guide checker (formerly called pep8) prefers the not in operator in rule E713:

E713: test for membership should be not in

See also "Python if x is not None or if not x is None?" for a very similar choice of style.