How to check if exactly one of two condition is met

Question

I am checking wether one of two conditions applies and only one.

My question is if there is a way to have a single if statement to do this:

if x == True:
    if y == False:
        do_something()
elif x == False:
    if y == True:
        do_something()

Ideally similar to how and and or work so that it would something like:

enter code here
if x == True ° y == True:
    do_something()

whereas ° is the wanted operator

I would appreciate any advice if this is not possible.

Thank you in advance!!

because you are checking for x and y, you want to make sure x and y are not the same. The only way it is true is if x != y. So check for it and you have your answer — Joe Ferndz, Jan 17 '21 at 23:36
Sidenote, comparing against booleans is generally bad practice. See [PEP 8](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/#programming-recommendations:~:text=Don't%20compare%20boolean%20values%20to%20True%20or%20False%20using%20%3D%3D%3A) and [this answer](https://stackoverflow.com/a/9494887/4518341). Instead of `if x == True` and `if x == False`, simply use `if x` and `if not x`. — wjandrea, Jan 17 '21 at 23:50

Rich S · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-17T23:42:37.177

1

You need to use the logical operator XOR, but in this scenario, it's the equivalent of just saying

if x != y: 
   do_something()

As it will only be true if one of the conditions is met.

-- update --

There's also an actual XOR operator

if x ^ y:
   do_something()

They will be identical in this example.

edited Jan 17 '21 at 23:42

answered Jan 17 '21 at 23:34

Rich S

1 Answers1