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5.10 Boolean operations

Boolean operations have the lowest priority of all Python operations:

  expression | ::= | or_test [if or_test else test] | lambda_form
  or_test | ::= | and_test | or_test "or" and_test
  and_test | ::= | not_test | and_test "and" not_test
  not_test | ::= | comparison | "not" not_test

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In the context of Boolean operations, and also when expressions are used by control flow statements, the following values are interpreted as false: `False`, `None`, numeric zero of all types, and empty strings and containers (including strings, tuples, lists, dictionaries, sets and frozensets). All other values are interpreted as true.

The operator `not` yields `True` if its argument is false, `False` otherwise.

The expression `x if C else y` first evaluates C (not x); if C is true, x is evaluated and its value is returned; otherwise, y is evaluated and its value is returned. New in version 2.5.

The expression `x and y` first evaluates x; if x is false, its value is returned; otherwise, y is evaluated and the resulting value is returned.

The expression `x or y` first evaluates x; if x is true, its value is returned; otherwise, y is evaluated and the resulting value is returned.

(Note that neither `and` nor `or` restrict the value and type they return to `False` and `True`, but rather return the last evaluated argument. This is sometimes useful, e.g., if `s` is a string that should be replaced by a default value if it is empty, the expression `s or 'foo'` yields the desired value. Because `not` has to invent a value anyway, it does not bother to return a value of the same type as its argument, so e.g., `not 'foo'` yields `False`, not `''`.)