[Python-Dev] Re: Empty keyword

[Casey Duncan]

On Mon, 07 Jun 2004 14:32:18 +0100
Sylvain Hellegouarch <sh at defuze.org> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> It miht sound stupid or useless, or maybe someone has already
> mentioned it but sometimes I wish Python could provdie an "Empty"
> keyword like The "None" one.
> 
> It would be usefull to validdate the emptyness of any scalar or
> sequence in an uniform way instead of using things such as :
> 
> if len(mylist) == 0:

You would not write it this way anyhow. In Python you can test a
sequence directly as in:

if mylist:

or

if not mylist:

Empty sequences (and mappings) are false and non-empty sequences are
true.

See also: http://docs.python.org/ref/Booleans.html#Booleans

-Casey