Trinary operator?

[Philipp Lenssen]

"Andrew Dalke" <dalke at dalkescientific.com> wrote in message
news:a9kebg$ub9$1 at slb5.atl.mindspring.net...
> Philipp Lenssen:
> >can I use something like
> >    verboseGender = (gender == 'm') ? 'male' : 'female'
> >in Python?
>
> No.  Search the archives for "ternary operator" for plenty of
> past discussion.  Google lists 65 posts for comp.lang.python.
>

Sorry. I actually did search but typed "trinary" instead of "ternary". Since
I didn't know what either word means I got confused, and now that I checked
an online translator to german I'm not even sure the word "trinary" exists.
Oh well.

> Besides, for this specific case you should have some error checking,
> because there are genders other than 'male' and 'female' (eg,
> asexual bacteria and hermaphradite earthworms).
>
>   verboseGenderTable = {
>      "m": "male",
>      "f": "female",
>   }
>   verboseGender = verboseGenderTable[gender]
>

(I suppose while the bacteria get too frustrated to use my application, the
hermaphrodites are busy playing with themselves.)