Re: Implicit conversion to boolean in if and while statements

References	<500280A6.6070608@gmail.com>
Date	2012-07-15 18:47 +1000
Subject	Re: Implicit conversion to boolean in if and while statements
From	Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.python
Message-ID	<mailman.2134.1342342028.4697.python-list@python.org> (permalink)

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On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 6:34 PM, Andrew Berg <bahamutzero8825@gmail.com> wrote:
> Converting 0 and 1 to False and True seems reasonable, but I don't see
> the point in converting other arbitrary values.

It's for convenience. Unfortunately, not all languages treat all types
the same way. It's very handy, though, to be able to use

if not foo: foo = some_initializer

when foo starts out as, say, None. Or []. Or, in fact, any other "empty" value.

ChrisA

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Re: Implicit conversion to boolean in if and while statements Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2012-07-15 18:47 +1000

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