On Oct 10, 11:03 pm, Larry Bates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[...]
>
> Boolean problem:
>
> if cal or fat <= 0
>
> That may be the way you say it or "think" it but it won't work.
>
> 'cal or fat' is evaluated first. Since they both have values this ALWAYS
> evaluates to 1 which is NEVER less than or equal to 0.
That's not correct. The comparison operator has higher presedence than
the or operator, so the above is interpreted as:
if (cal) or (fat <= 0):
This idiom is occasionally useful in a couple of scenarios like e.g.
default and mutable function arguments:
def foo(n=None):
n = n or [42]
which is very common in Perl code, but causes problems if you pass it
an empty list. The better way of doing that in Python is probably:
def foo(n=None):
n = n is None and [42]
but if you're going to write that much, it's clearer to just go with
the canonical:
def foo(n=None):
if n is None:
n = [42]
but I digress :-)
> You are looking for
>
> if (cal <= 0) or (fat <=0):
>
> (Note: Parenthesis not required, but it may help you understand precedence of
> evaluation.
That is a correct coding of the OP's intentions, although I would
think that the number of fat grams could indeed be zero for some
foods(?) so perhaps it would be more correct to say:
if cal <= 0 or fat < 0:
> Also read here:
>
> http://www.ibiblio.org/g2swap/byteofpython/read/operator-precedence.html
>
> -Larry
Good table, except for higher presedence being further down in the
table which might be confusing pedagogically.
-- bjorn
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