[Tutor] 2.5's new conditional expression syntax

[Dick Moores]

At 03:25 PM 9/28/2006, wesley chun wrote:
>On 9/28/06, Dick Moores <rdm at rcblue.com> wrote:
>>I've been looking hard at 2.5's new conditional expression syntax
>>(<http://docs.python.org/whatsnew/pep-308.html>), and didn't
>>understand the examples there...
>>     :
>>But it would help to see an example I could understand that also
>>shows the syntax's usefulness. Could someone cook up one for me?
>
>here is an example from "Core Python:"
>
>WITHOUT conditional expressions:
>
>>>>x = 4
>>>>y = 3
>>>>if x < y:
>... smaller = x
>...    else:
>... smaller = y
>...
>>>>smaller
>3
>
>WITH conditional expressions:
>>>>smaller = x if x < y else y
>>>>smaller
>3
>
>hope this helps!

That's very clear. Thanks, Wesley.

And if you wanted to know which is smaller, x or y:

x = 8**9
y = 9**8
smaller = "x" if x < y else "y"
print smaller, "is smaller"

I think I'm getting the hang of it!

BTW I'm told your book will arrive on my front porch in a couple of 
days. I'm looking forward to it!  (<http://tinyurl.com/f22uu>)

Dick