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Ternary Operator in Python?
Many programming languages support ternary operator, which basically define a conditional expression.
Similarly the ternary operator in python is used to return a value based on the result of a binary condition. It takes binary value(condition) as an input, so it looks similar to an “if-else” condition block. However, it also returns a value so behaving similar to a function.
Syntax
[on_true] if [expression] else [on_false]
Let’s write one simple program, which compare two integers -
a. Using python if-else statement -
>>> x, y = 5, 6
>>> if x>y:
print("x")
else:
print("y")
yb. Using ternary operator
>>> x, y = 5, 6
>>> print("x" if x> y else "y")
yWith ternary operator, we are able to write code in one line. So python basically first evaluates the condition, if true – evaluate the first expression else evaluates the second condition.
>>> def find_max(a,b): return a if (a>b) else b >>> find_max(5, 6) 6
Way to implement Ternary Operator
Below are different ways to implement ternary operator.
a. Using Python Tuples
>>> a, b = random(), random() >>> (b, a) [a>b] 0.5497848117028667
Above is equivalent to -
>>> (b, a) [True] 0.5065247098746795
But if you are confused with value returned is of ‘a’ or ‘b’. Let’ rewrite above code.
>>> (f"b:{b}", f"a:{a}") [a>b]
'b:0.5497848117028667'b. Using Python dictionaries
>>> a, b = random(), random()
>>> {False: f"b:{b}", True: f"a:{a}"}[a>b]
'a:0.8089581560973976'We can interchange the key-value pair -
>>> {True: f"a:{a}", False: f"b:{b}"}[a>b]
'a:0.8089581560973976'c. Using Lambdas
We can use python lambda function to act as a ternary operator -
>>> (lambda: f"a:{a}", lambda: f"b:{b}")[a>b]()
'b:0.6780078581465793'Nested Python ternary operator
Let’s try chaining these operators -
>>> from random import random >>> x = random() >>> "Less than zero" if x<0 else "between 0 and 5" if a>=0 and a<=5 else "Greather than five"
Output
'between 0 and 5'
Let’s check the actual value of x -
>>> x 0.08009251123993566
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