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Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2012 18:47:05 +1000
Subject: Re: Implicit conversion to boolean in if and while statements
From: Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com>
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Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.python:25343

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