LU04a - Ternary conditional operator in Python

The ternary condition operator is a compact way of assigning a value based on a condition. It is particularly useful for simple if-else statements that only return one value.

The syntax of the ternary conditional operator in Python is:

x if condition else y

• x: The value that is returned if the condition is true.
• condition: The condition that is checked.
• y: The value that is returned if the condition is false.

A simple example could be the assignment of a variable greeting variable that contains either „Good morning“ or „Good day“ based on the current hour:

hour = 9  # aktuelle Stunde
greeting = "Good morning" if hour < 12 else "Good day"
print(greeting)  # Output: "Good morning"

In this example, „Good morning“ is output because the condition hour < 12 wahr ist.

Der ternäre Bedingungsoperator ist eine verkürzte Form einer if-else-Anweisung. Zum Vergleich, das obige Beispiel könnte auch mit einer herkömmlichen if-else-Anweisung geschrieben werden:

hour = 9  # aktuelle Stunde
if hour < 12:
    greeting = "Good morning"
else:
    greeting = "Good day"
print(greeting)  # Output: "Good morning"

© Kevin Maurizi