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Python Ternary Operator
Does Python have an equivalent of the ternary operator?:
( x < 5 ? 1 : 0 )
Or must I express the same thing with an if-else pair?
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You can use a conditional expression:
1 if x < 5 else 0
In code written for very old versions of Python, you may also see:
x < 5 and 1 or 0
However, the conditional expression form is preferred for Python 2.5 and later.
Greg Hewgill
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1Note that the `and`/`or` will fail if the value after `and` is false. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Jun 15 '11 at 00:04
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@Greg: Thanks. I'll accept your answer in 11 minutes. – Ken Jun 15 '11 at 00:06
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2Of course, in this particular case, you can just use `x < 5` as the value itself, or `bool(x < 5)` if `x` is a particularly weird type. – Thomas Wouters Jun 15 '11 at 00:06
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@ignacio, that does not seem to be the case. `0 and 0 or 1` returns `1` for me, just tested on Python 2.3 through 2.7 – lunixbochs Jun 15 '11 at 00:12
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And the `if:/else:` should be preferred in code that has to work in Python <2.5. I find that reading/fixing/refactoring code with the `and/or` variant is much less productive than the 4-5 line version – John La Rooy Jun 15 '11 at 00:27
