On Thursday, August 25, 2011 1:54:35 PM UTC-7, ti...@thsu.org wrote: > On Aug 25, 10:35 am, Arnaud Delobelle <arn...@gmail.com> wrote: > > You're close to the usual idiom: > > > > def doSomething(debug=None): > > if debug is None: > > debug = defaults['debug'] > > ... > > > > Note the use of 'is' rather than '==' > > HTH > > Hmm, from what you are saying, it seems like there's no elegant way to > handle run time defaults for function arguments, meaning that I should > probably write a sql-esc coalesce function to keep my code cleaner. I > take it that most people who run into this situation do this?
I don't; it seems kind of superfluous when "if arg is not None: arg = whatever" is just as easy to type and more straightforward to read. I could see a function like coalesce being helpful if you have a list of several options to check, though. Also, SQL doesn't give you a lot of flexibility, so coalesce is a lot more needed there. But for simple arguments in Python, I'd recommend sticking with "if arg is not None: arg = whatever" Carl Banks -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
