A certainl part of an if() structure never gets executed.

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sat, 15 Jun 2013 18:55:05 -0700, Tim Roberts wrote:

> Nick the Gr33k <support at superhost.gr> wrote:
>>
>>but i'm doing this all day long i just dont comprehend why it works this
>>way. it doesn't make any sense to me.
> 
> It's just a rule you'll have to learn.  The "and" and "or" operators in
> Python simply do not return a boolean value.  The expression "a or b" is
> evaluated as:
>     if a is true then return a otherwise return b

I prefer to say that as 

"if a is true-ish then return a otherwise return b"

or even

"if a quacks like a true value then return a otherwise return b"


to emphasis that this is a form of duck-typing, and avoid any confusion 
with "if a is True".


But otherwise, well said.



-- 
Steven