Does Python have an "or equals" function like ||= in Ruby?

Question

If not, what is the best way to do this?

Right now I’m doing (for a django project):

if not 'thing_for_purpose' in request.session:
    request.session['thing_for_purpose'] = 5

but its pretty awkward. In Ruby it would be:

request.session['thing_for_purpose'] ||= 5

which is much nicer.

Asked By: Sean W.

||

Source

Answer 1

dict has setdefault().

So if request.session is a dict:

request.session.setdefault('thing_for_purpose', 5)

Answered By: Jon-Eric

Answer 2

Setting a default makes sense if you’re doing it in a middleware or something, but if you need a default value in the context of one request:

request.session.get('thing_for_purpose', 5) # gets a default

bonus: here’s how to really do an ||= in Python.

def test_function(self, d=None):
    'a simple test function'
    d = d or {}

    # ... do things with d and return ...

Answered By: Brian Hicks

Answer 3

Jon-Eric’s answer’s is good for dicts, but the title seeks a general equivalent to ruby‘s ||= operator.

A common way to do something like ||= in Python is

x = x or new_value

Answered By: Joseph Sheedy

Answer 4

In general, you can use dict[key] = dict.get(key, 0) + val.

Answered By: curtissv

Answer 5

Precise answer: No. Python does not have a single built-in operator op that can translate x = x or y into x op y.

But, it almost does. The bitwise or-equals operator (|=) will function as described above if both operands are being treated as booleans, with a caveat. (What’s the caveat? Answer is below of course.)

First, the basic demonstration of functionality:

x = True
x    
Out[141]: True

x |= True
x    
Out[142]: True

x |= False
x    
Out[143]: True

x &= False
x    
Out[144]: False

x &= True
x    
Out[145]: False

x |= False
x    
Out[146]: False

x |= True
x   
Out[147]: True

The caveat is due python not being strictly-typed, and thus even if the values are being treated as booleans in an expression they will not be short-circuited if given to a bitwise operator. For example, suppose we had a boolean function which clears a list and returns True iff there were elements deleted:

def  my_clear_list(lst):
    if not lst:
        return False
    else:
        del lst[:]
        return True

Now we can see the short-circuited behavior as so:

x = True
lst = [1, 2, 3]
x = x or my_clear_list(lst)
print(x, lst)

Output: True [1, 2, 3]

However, switching the or to a bitwise or (|) removes the short-circuit, so the function my_clear_list executes.

x = True
lst = [1, 2, 3]
x = x | my_clear_list(lst)
print(x, lst)

Output: True []

Above, x = x | my_clear_list(lst) is equivalent to x |= my_clear_list(lst).

Answered By: Apollys supports Monica

Does Python have an "or equals" function like ||= in Ruby?

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