ONLY ONE BUY OR SELL POSITION

Hi

My bot should be able to have a long and short position simultaneously. But, it should not open a sell if I already have a sell open. Then it should only open a buy. Basically, when it triggers, check long position. If > 0, do not buy, only sell. And vice versa. How would I enter this function in my code. I used positions.count > 0, but then it checks for both buy and sell open positions. Please help!!