Alternative to list comprehension if there will be only one result

Question

I'm starting to get used to list comprehension in Python but I'm afraid I'm using it somewhat improperly. I've run into a scenario a few times where I'm using list comprehension but immediately taking the first (and only) item from the list that is generated. Here is an example:

actor = [actor for actor in self.actors if actor.name==actorName][0]

(self.actors contains a list of objects and I'm trying to get to the one with a specific (string) name, which is in actorName.)

I'm trying to pull out the object from the list that matches the parameter I'm looking for. Is this method unreasonable? The dangling [0] makes me feel a bit insecure.

Answer 1

You could use a generator expression and next instead. This would be more efficient as well, since an intermediate list is not created and iteration can stop once a match has been found:

actor = next(actor for actor in self.actors if actor.name==actorName)

And as senderle points out, another advantage to this approach is that you can specify a default if no match is found:

actor = next((actor for actor in self.actors if actor.name==actorName), None)