Conditional operator in Python?

[Erik Max Francis]

Andrew Dalke wrote:

> I do remember a letter to the editor in CACM a few
> years ago complaining about all the CS oriented computer
> science languages which didn't have a very useful
> feature in COBOL - a data type which understood that
> leading zeros are important for identifier numbers.
> Eg, 04/03/01 as a date or 001-453-23264 as a part
> number.

Eh?  There already is a perfectly good data type for that -- a string.

-- 
 Erik Max Francis / max at alcyone.com / http://www.alcyone.com/max/
 __ San Jose, CA, US / 37 20 N 121 53 W / ICQ16063900 / &tSftDotIotE
/  \ The public is a fool.
\__/ Alexander Pope
    Crank Dot Net / http://www.crank.net/
 Cranks, crackpots, kooks, & loons on the Net.