One line if-condition-assignment

python if-statement
bdhar picture bdhar · Oct 24, 2011 · Viewed 294.3k times · Source

I have the following code

num1 = 10
someBoolValue = True

I need to set the value of num1 to 20 if someBoolValue is True; and do nothing otherwise. So, here is my code for that

num1 = 20 if someBoolValue else num1

Is there someway I could avoid the ...else num1 part to make it look cleaner? An equivalent to 

if someBoolValue:
    num1 = 20

I tried replacing it with ...else pass like this: num1=20 if someBoolValue else pass. All I got was syntax error. Nor I could just omit the ...else num1 part.

Answer

Frost picture Frost · Oct 24, 2011

I don't think this is possible in Python, since what you're actually trying to do probably gets expanded to something like this:

num1 = 20 if someBoolValue else num1

If you exclude else num1, you'll receive a syntax error since I'm quite sure that the assignment must actually return something.

As others have already mentioned, you could do this, but it's bad because you'll probably just end up confusing yourself when reading that piece of code the next time:

if someBoolValue: num1=20

I'm not a big fan of the num1 = someBoolValue and 20 or num1 for the exact same reason. I have to actually think twice on what that line is doing.

The best way to actually achieve what you want to do is the original version:

if someBoolValue:
    num1 = 20

The reason that's the best verison is because it's very obvious what you want to do, and you won't confuse yourself, or whoever else is going to come in contact with that code later.

Also, as a side note, num1 = 20 if someBoolValue is valid Ruby code, because Ruby works a bit differently.

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