Is there a short contains function for lists?

Given a list xs and a value item, how can I check whether xs contains item (i.e., if any of the elements of xs is equal to item)? Is there something like xs.contains(item)?

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_{For performance considerations, see Fastest way to check if a value exists in a list.}

Answer

Use:

if my_item in some_list:
    ...

Also, inverse operation:

if my_item not in some_list:
    ...

It works fine for lists, tuples, sets and dicts (check keys).

Note that this is an O(n) operation in lists and tuples, but an O(1) operation in sets and dicts.