Has anyone else felt a desire for a 'nochange' value resembling the 'Z'-state of a electronic tri-state output? var1 = 17 var1 = func1() # func1() returns 'nochange' this time print var1 # prints 17 It would be equivalent to: var1 = 17 var2, bool1 = func1() if bool1: var1 = var2 print var1 # prints 17 BR/ CJF