C and many other languages have a conditional (AKA ternary) operator. This allows you to make very terse choices between two values based on the truth of a condition, which makes expressions, including assignments, very concise.
I miss this because I find that my code has lots of conditional assignments that take four lines in Python:
if condition: var = something else: var = something_else Whereas in C it'd be:
var = condition ? something : something_else; Once or twice in a file is fine, but if you have lots of conditional assignments, the number of lines explode, and worst of all the eye is drawn to them.
I like the terseness of the conditional operator, because it keeps things I deem un-strategic from distracting me when skimming the code.
So, in Python, is there a trick you can use to get the assignment onto a single line to approximate the advantages of the conditional operator as I outlined them?
02 Answers
Python has such an operator:
variable = something if condition else something_else Alternatively, although not recommended (see karadoc's comment):
variable = (condition and something) or something_else In older Python code, you may see the trick:
condition and something or something_else However, this has been superseded by the vastly superior ... if ... else ... construct:
something if condition else something_else 
