Cleaning up conditionals

[Deborah Swanson]

Jussi Piitulainen wrote:
> Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2016 8:30 AM
> Deborah Swanson writes:
> 
> > Is it possible to use some version of the "a = expression1 if 
> > condition else expression2" syntax with an elif? And for 
> expression1 
> > and expression2 to be single statements?  That's the kind of 
> > shortcutting I'd like to do, and it seems like python might 
> be able to 
> > do something like this.
> 
> I missed this question when I read the thread earlier. The 
> answer is simply to make expression2 be another conditional 
> expression. I tend to write the whole chain in parentheses. 
> This allows multi-line layouts like the following alternatives:
> 
> a = ( first if len(first) > 0
>       else second if len(second) > 0
>       else make_stuff_up() )
> 
> a = ( first if len(first) > 0 else
>       second if len(second) > 0 else
>       make_stuff_up() )
> 
> Expression1 and expression2 cannot be statements. Python 
> makes a formal distinction between statements that have an 
> effect and expressions that have a value. All components of a 
> conditional expression must be expressions. A function call 
> can behave either way but I think it good style that the 
> calls in expresions return values.

Your second alternative is exactly what I was thinking should be
possible in python, but I couldn't figure out how to do it. I'm
rewriting the little function I wrote to use this form. Thanks also for
the explanation of why expressions work in terniaries, but statements
don't, and what the difference between statements and expressions is.