Python: avoiding if condition for this code? - python

for the following code
a =func()
if a != None:
b.append(a)
a can be assigned to None, is there a way to avoid the if statement and only use one line of code?
original problem is the following
import xml.etree.ElementTree as etree
r = etree.parse(f).getroot()
b = etree.Element('register',{})
a = r.find('tag_name') # a may get None if did not find it
if a != None:
b.append(a)
ok, I used all the answers and got this, personally I think it's the most complex python I have ever wrote so far, lol
NS_MAP = {
'spirit' : 'http://www.spiritconsortium.org/XMLSchema/SPIRIT/1.4',
'app' : 'http://www.app.com/SPIRIT-app'
}
mp=etree.Element('MemoryProperty', {'version':'alpha'})
mpt=etree.ElementTree(mp)
def copy_tags(tp, op, p, tn, ns='spirit'):
c = p.find('{%s}%s'%(NS_MAP[ns],tn))
if c is not None:
(op == '<-') and tp.append(c)
return c
for reg in regs:
te = etree.Element('register',{})
copy_tags(te,'<-',reg,'name')
copy_tags(te,'<-',reg,'addressOffset')
copy_tags(te,'<-',reg,'access')
(lambda e, t: copy_tags(te,'<-',t,'usageConstraints',ns='app') if t is not None else None)(te, copy_tags(te,'|',reg,'vendorExtensions'))
mp.append(te)
mpt.write('map_gen.xml')

If you can call func() beforehand, and you want to combine the test and assignment statements into a single statement, then you can do this, with an if-else expression:
b += [a] if a is not None else []
If a is not None, then this will add [a] to b -- essentially the same operation as b.append(a)
If a is None, then this will add [] to b, which will leave b unchanged.
This won't work unless b is a list, or at least supports "+=" in-place addition. If it doesn't -- perhaps it's some custom object, then you should be able to do this:
(b.append(a) if a is not None else None)
This is an expression, evaluated for its side effects, and then thrown away. If a is None, then the b.append(a) call will never be executed. In either case, the value of the expression is None, but we don't care about it, so it gets ignored.
Now, if you want to combine the func() call with this, then you'll have to do something different in order to avoid calling func twice. If you can use the "+=" syntax, then you can do it like this:
b += filter(None, [func()])
filter(None, <list>) returns the list with all false elements (None included, but also 0 and []) removed. This statement, then, will add either [func()] or [] to b.
[Edited]
Finally, for the worst case scenario: If you can't call func() more than once, and you can't use b += <list>, and you need to accept 0, "", [], etc, and only exclude None, and you need it all on one line, here's the ugliest line of code yet:
(lambda l, a: l.append(a) if a is not None else None)(b, func())
This is essentially #ekhumoro's solution, compressed into one line. It defines an anonymous function, calls it, discards the value, and then discards the function, all for the sake of the side effect.
Now, this is a single line, but it's certainly not easier to read or understand than the original code. If I were you, I'd stick with the original, or go with #ekhumoro's idea of just defining a helper function and using that.

python 3.8 walrus operator
if a := func(): b.append(a)

You asked the wrong question here. The clue is in your reply to one of the comments where you say "I have 10+ tags, if I can get 3 line to 1 line, I will save 20+ lines".
So your problem actually is not that you have 3 lines of code but that you are needlessly repeating 3 lines of code over and over. You could use a function to extract the repeated lines, but it sounds like in this case you may actually want a loop:
THE_TAGS = ('tag1', 'tag2', 'and so on')
for tag in THE_TAGS:
a = r.find(tag) # a may get None if did not find it
if a != None:
b.append(a)
Or if you need to append to different lists:
def extract_tag(r, tag_name, to):
a = r.find(tag_name) # a may get None if did not find it
if a != None:
to.append(a)
extract_tag(r, 'tag1', b)
extract_tag(r, 'tag2', c)

Short answer: Not really.
Longer answer: If you really wanted to avoid this (perhaps because you want to implement this behavior --- appending only non-None values) from several different blocks of code) then you could create a class as a proxy around the underlying b object and hide the details in its append method.
class NonNoneAppender:
def __init__(self, obj):
if not hasattr(obj, 'append') or not callable(obj.append):
raise ValueError, "Object must have append method"
self.__obj = obj
def append(self, item):
if item is not None:
return self.__obj.append(item)
def __getattr__(self, attr):
return getattr( self.__obj, attr)
... and then you could do something like:
b = NonNoneAppender(b)
However, I'm not sure this would make any sense at all for your code.

Attacking your real problem, and doing it in two lines for clarity:
temp = [r.find(tag) for tag in list_of_tags]
b.extend(x for x in temp if x is not None)
Note: Element.extend is new in Python 2.7/3.2

Presumably you're not trying to remove just a single if statement from your code...
So the obvious answer is to use a function:
import xml.etree.ElementTree as etree
def append(parent, child):
if child is not None:
parent.append(child)
r = etree.parse(f).getroot()
b = etree.Element('register',{})
append(b, r.find('tag_name'))

You can just add everything and remove Nones at the end with b = [a for a in b if b is not None]. Or, in your particular use case, you can do b.extend(r.findall('tag_name')[:1]). This may be a bit slower, however, as it will go through the whole tree, rather than stopping at the first instance.

b+=list(set([r.find('tag_name')])-set([None]))
But it's very ugly. A little cleaner, but also a line longer:
b.append(r.find('tag_name'))
b.remove(None)
Still not very neat though. If I were you I'd just keep that if statement.

Related

Is there a "Pythonic" way of creating a list with conditional items?

I've got this block of code in a real Django function. If certain conditions are met, items are added to the list.
ret = []
if self.taken():
ret.append('taken')
if self.suggested():
ret.append('suggested')
#.... many more conditions and appends...
return ret
It's very functional. You know what it does, and that's great...
But I've learned to appreciate the beauty of list and dict comprehensions.
Is there a more Pythonic way of phrasing this construct, perhaps that initialises and populates the array in one blow?
Create a mapping dictionary:
self.map_dict = {'taken': self.taken,
'suggested': self.suggested,
'foo' : self.bar}
[x for x in ['taken', 'suggested', 'foo'] if self.map_dict.get(x, lambda:False)()]
Related: Most efficient way of making an if-elif-elif-else statement when the else is done the most?
Not a big improvement, but I'll mention it:
def populate():
if self.taken():
yield 'taken'
if self.suggested():
yield 'suggested'
ret = list(populate())
Can we do better? I'm skeptical. Clearly there's a need of using another syntax than a list literal, because we no longer have the "1 expression = 1 element in result" invariant.
Edit:
There's a pattern to our data, and it's a list of (condition, value) pairs. We might try to exploit it using:
[value
for condition, value
in [(self.taken(), 'taken'),
(self.suggested(), 'suggested')]
if condition]
but this still is a restriction for how you describe your logic, still has the nasty side effect of evaluating all values no matter the condition (unless you throw in a ton of lambdas), and I can't really see it as an improvement over what we've started with.
For this very specific example, I could do:
return [x for x in ['taken', 'suggested', ...] if getattr(self, x)()]
But again, this only works where the item and method it calls to check have the same name, ie for my exact code. It could be adapted but it's a bit crusty. I'm very open to other solutions!
I don't know why we are appending strings that match the function names, but if this is a general pattern, we can use that. Functions have a __name__ attribute and I think it always contains what you want in the list.
So how about:
return [fn.__name__ for fn in (self.taken, self.suggested, foo, bar, baz) if fn()]
If I understand the problem correctly, this works just as well for non-member functions as for member functions.
EDIT:
Okay, let's add a mapping dictionary. And split out the function names into a tuple or list.
fns_to_check = (self.taken, self.suggested, foo, bar, baz)
# This holds only the exceptions; if a function isn't in here,
# we will use the .__name__ attribute.
fn_name_map = {foo:'alternate', bar:'other'}
def fn_name(fn):
"""Return name from exceptions map, or .__name__ if not in map"""
return fn_name_map.get(fn, fn.__name__)
return [fn_name(fn) for fn in fns_to_check if fn()]
You could also just use #hcwhsa's mapping dictionary answer. The main difference here is I'm suggesting just mapping the exceptions.
In another instance (where a value will be defined but might be None - a Django model's fields in my case), I've found that just adding them and filtering works:
return filter(None, [self.user, self.partner])
If either of those is None, They'll be removed from the list. It's a little more intensive than just checking but still fairly easy way of cleaning the output without writing a book.
One option is to have a "sentinel"-style object to take the place of list entries that fail the corresponding condition. Then a function can be defined to filter out the missing items:
# "sentinel indicating a list element that should be skipped
Skip = object()
def drop_missing(itr):
"""returns an iterator yielding all but Skip objects from the given itr"""
return filter(lambda v: v is not Skip, itr)
With this simple machinery, we come reasonably close to list-comprehension style syntax:
return drop_skips([
'taken' if self.taken else Skip,
'suggested' if self.suggested else Skip,
100 if self.full else Skip,
// many other values and conditions
])
ret = [
*('taken' for _i in range(1) if self.taken()),
*('suggested' for _i in range(1) if self.suggested()),
]
The idea is to use the list comprehension syntax to construct either a single element list with item 'taken', if self.taken() is True, or an empty list, if self.taken() is False, and then unpack it.

Alternatives for 3 lines of java-like code?

Assume you have a function, that sometimes returns a value, and sometimes doesn't, because there really is nothing you could return in this case, not even a default value or something. Now you want to do something with the result, but of course only when there is one.
Example:
result = function_call(params)
if result:
print result
Is there a way to write this in a more pythonic way, maybe even in one line?
Like that:
print function_call(params) or #nothing
(Note that I mean it shouldn't print "nothing" or "None". It should actually just not print at all, if the result is None)
No; in Python, name binding is a statement and so cannot be used as an expression within a statement. Since print is also a statement you're going to require 3 lines; in Python 3 you could write:
result = function_call(params)
print(result) if result else None
This isn't quite true for name binding within a comprehension or generator, where name binding is a syntax item that has statement-like semantics:
[print(result) for result in generator_call(params) if result]
As Kos says, you can abuse this to create a one-element comprehension:
[print(result) for result in (function_call(params), ) if result]
Another syntax item that performs name binding and can similarly be abused is the lambda expression:
(lambda result: print(result) if result else None)(function_call(params))
Note that in both these cases the operation on the return value must be an expression and not a statement.
I think the more Pythonic version is actually closer to your original:
result = function_call(params)
if result is not None:
do_something(result)
Checking for is (not) None seems very idiomatic to me - I've used it several times myself and I've also seen it used elsewhere[citation-needed].
From the answers up to now I would do that:
>>> from __future__ import print_function #if Python2.7
>>> def filtered_print(txt):
... txt and print(txt)
...
>>> filtered_print('hello world')
hello world
>>> filtered_print('None')
None
>>> filtered_print(None)
>>>
If someone else has a better solution in mind, I am still open for alternatives, though!

Is there a way to get the return value of a function and test it's "nonzero" at the same time?

I have code that looks like this:
if(func_cliche_start(line)):
a=func_cliche_start(line)
#... do stuff with 'a' and line here
elif(func_test_start(line)):
a=func_test_start(line)
#... do stuff with a and line here
elif(func_macro_start(line)):
a=func_macro_start(line)
#... do stuff with a and line here
...
Each of the func_blah_start functions either return None or a string (based on the input line). I don't like the redundant call to func_blah_start as it seems like a waste (func_blah_start is "pure", so we can assume no side effects). Is there a better idiom for this type of thing, or is there a better way to do it?
Perhaps I'm wrong, (my C is rusty), but I thought that you could do something this in C:
int a;
if(a=myfunc(input)){ /*do something with a and input here*/ }
is there a python equivalent?
Why don't you assign the function func_cliche_start to variable a before the if statement?
a = func_cliche_start(line)
if a:
pass # do stuff with 'a' and line here
The if statement will fail if func_cliche_start(line) returns None.
You can create a wrapper function to make this work.
def assign(value, lst):
lst[0] = value
return value
a = [None]
if assign(func_cliche_start(line), a):
#... do stuff with 'a[0]' and line here
elif assign(func_test_start(line), a):
#...
You can just loop thru your processing functions that would be easier and less lines :), if you want to do something different in each case, wrap that in a function and call that e.g.
for func, proc in [(func_cliche_start, cliche_proc), (func_test_start, test_proc), (func_macro_start, macro_proc)]:
a = func(line)
if a:
proc(a, line)
break;
I think you should put those blocks of code in functions. That way you can use a dispatcher-style approach. If you need to modify a lot of local state, use a class and methods. (If not, just use functions; but I'll assume the class case here.) So something like this:
from itertools import dropwhile
class LineHandler(object):
def __init__(self, state):
self.state = state
def handle_cliche_start(self, line):
# modify state
def handle_test_start(self, line):
# modify state
def handle_macro_start(self, line):
# modify state
line_handler = LineHandler(initial_state)
handlers = [line_handler.handle_cliche_start,
line_handler.handle_test_start,
line_handler.handle_macro_start]
tests = [func_cliche_start,
func_test_start,
func_macro_start]
handlers_tests = zip(handlers, tests)
for line in lines:
handler_iter = ((h, t(line)) for h, t in handlers_tests)
handler_filter = ((h, l) for h, l in handler_iter if l is not None)
handler, line = next(handler_filter, (None, None))
if handler:
handler(line)
This is a bit more complex than your original code, but I think it compartmentalizes things in a much more scalable way. It does require you to maintain separate parallel lists of functions, but the payoff is that you can add as many as you want without having to write long if statements -- or calling your function twice! There are probably more sophisticated ways of organizing the above too -- this is really just a roughed-out example of what you could do. For example, you might be able to create a sorted container full of (priority, test_func, handler_func) tuples and iterate over it.
In any case, I think you should consider refactoring this long list of if/elif clauses.
You could take a list of functions, make it a generator and return the first Truey one:
functions = [func_cliche_start, func_test_start, func_macro_start]
functions_gen = (f(line) for f in functions)
a = next((x for x in functions_gen if x), None)
Still seems a little strange, but much less repetition.

Deal with undefined arguments more elegantly

The accepted paradigm to deal with mutable default arguments is:
def func(self, a = None):
if a is None:
a = <some_initialisation>
self.a = a
As I might have to do this for several arguments, I would need to write very similar 3 lines over and over again. I find this un-pythonically a lot of text to read for a very very standard thing to do when initialising class objects or functions.
Isn't there an elegant one-liner to replace those 3 lines dealing with the potentially undefined argument and the standard required copying to the class instance variables?
If a "falsy" value (0, empty string, list, dict, etc.) is not a valid value for a, then you can cut down the initialization to one line:
a = a or <initialize_object>
Another way of doing the same thing is as follows:
def func(self,**kwargs):
self.a=kwargs.get('a',<a_initialization>)
...
This has the added bonus that the value of a passed to the function could be None and the initialization won't overwrite it. The disadvantage is that a user using the builtin help function won't be able to tell what keywords your function is looking for unless you spell it out explicitly in the docstring.
EDIT
One other comment. The user could call the above function with keywords which are not pulled out of the kwargs dictionary. In some cases, this is good (if you want to pass the keywords to another function for instance). In other cases, this is not what you want. If you want to raise an error if the user provides an unknown keyword, you can do the following:
def func(self,**kwargs):
self.a=kwargs.pop('a',"Default_a")
self.b=kwargs.pop('b',"Default_b")
if(kwargs):
raise ... #some appropriate exception...possibly using kwargs.keys() to say which keywords were not appropriate for this function.
You could do this
def func(self, a=None):
self.a = <some_initialisation> if a is None else a
But why the obsession with one liners? I would usually use the 3 line version even if it gets repeated all over the place because if makes your code very easy for experienced Python programmers to read
just a little solution I came up by using an extra function, can be improved of course:
defaultargs.py:
def doInit(var, default_value,condition):
if condition:
var = default_value
return var
def func(a=None, b=None, c=None):
a = doInit(a,5,(a is None or not isinstance(a,int)))
b = doInit(b,10.0,(a is None or not isinstance(a,float)))
c = doInit(c,"whatever",(a is None or not isinstance(c, str)))
print a
print b
print c
if __name__ == "__main__":
func(10)
func(None,12341.12)
func("foo",None,"whowho")
output:
10
10.0
whatever
5
10.0
whatever
5
10.0
whowho
I like your question. :)
Edit: If you dont care about the variables type, please dont use isinstance().

Switch in Python [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Replacements for switch statement in Python?
(44 answers)
Closed 27 days ago.
I have tried making a switch like statement in python, instead of having a lot of if statements.
The code looks like this:
def findStuff(cds):
L=[]
c=0
for i in range(0, len(cds), 3):
a=differencesTo(cds[i:i+3])
result = {
a[2][0]==1: c=i+1,
a[2][1]==1: c=i+2,
a[2][2]==1: c=i+3,
a[1]==1: L.append((cds[i:i+3], a[0], c))
}
return L
My problem is, that this does not work. (Works with if statements, but this would in my opinion be more pretty).
I have found some examples of switches in Python, and they follow this structure. Can anyone help me?
(a) I fail to see what is wrong with if...elif...else
(b) I assume that python does not have a switch statement for the same reason that Smalltalk doesn't: it's almost completely redundant, and in the case where you want to switch on types, you can add an appropriate method to your classes; and likewise switching on values should be largely redundant.
Note: I am informed in the comments that whatever Guido's reason for not creating a switch in the first place, PEPs to have it added were rejected on the basis that support for adding such a statement is extremely limited. See: http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-3103/
(c) If you really need switching behaviour, use a hashtable (dict) to store callables. The structure is:
switch_dict = {
Foo: self.doFoo,
Bar: self.doBar,
}
func = switch_dict[switch_var]
result = func() # or if they take args, pass args
There's nothing wrong with a long if:
if switch == 'case0':
do_case0()
elif switch == 'case1':
do_case1()
elif switch == 'case2':
do_case2()
...
If that's too long winded, or if you have a lot of cases, put them in a dictionary:
switch = {'case0': do_case0, 'case1': do_case1, 'case2': do_case2, ...}
switch[case_variable]()
// Alternative:
(switch[case_variable]).__call__()
If your conditions are a bit more complex, you need to think a little about your data structures. e.g.:
switch = {
(0,21): 'never have a pension',
(21,50): 'might have a pension',
(50,65): 'definitely have a pension',
(65, 200): 'already collecting pension'
}
for key, value in switch.items():
if key[0] <= case_var < key[1]:
print(value)
Other ans are suitable for older version of python. For python v3.10+ you can use match/case which is more powerful than general switch/case construct.
def something(val):
match val:
case "A":
return "A"
case "B":
return "B"
case "C":
return "C"
case _:
return "Default"
something("A")
Assignment in Python is a statement, and cannot be a part of expression. Also, using literal in this way evaluates everything at once, which is probably not what you want. Just use ifs, you won't gain any readability by using this.
I don't know which article you've found to do something like this, but this is really messy: the whole result diction will be always evaluated, and instead of doing only part of the work (as a switch / if do), you'll do the whole work everytime. (even if you use only a part of the result).
Really, a fast switch statement in Python is using "if":
if case == 1:
pass
elif case == 2:
pass
elif case == 3:
pass
else:
# default case
pass
With "get" method, you can have the same effect as "switch..case" in C.
Marcin example :
switch_dict = {
Foo: self.doFoo,
Bar: self.doBar,
}
func = switch_dict.get(switch_var, self.dodefault)
result = func() # or if they take args, pass args
You can do something like what you want, but you shouldn't. That said, here's how; you can see how it does not improve things.
The biggest problem with the way you have it is that Python will evaluate your tests and results once, at the time you declare the dictionary. What you'd have to do instead is make all conditions and the resulting statements functions; this way, evaluation is deferred until you call them. Fortunately there is a way to do this inline for simple functions using the lambda keyword. Secondly, the assignment statement can't be used as a value in Python, so our action functions (which are executed if the corresponding condition function returns a truthy value) have to return a value that will be used to increment c; they can't assign to c themselves.
Also, the items in a dictionary aren't ordered, so your tests won't necessarily be performed in the order you define them, meaning you probably should use something other than a dictionary that preserves order, such as a tuple or a list. I am assuming you want only ever one case to execute.
So, here we go:
def findStuff(cds):
cases = [ (lambda: a[2][0] == 1, lambda: i + 1),
(lambda: a[2][1] == 1, lambda: i + 2),
(lambda: a[2][2] == 1, lambda: i + 3),
(lambda: a[1] == 1, lambda: L.append(cds[i:i+3], a[0], c) or 0)
]
L=[]
c=0
for i in range(0, len(cds), 3):
a=differencesTo(cds[i:i+3])
for condition, action in cases:
if condition():
c += action()
break
return L
Is this more readable than a sequence of if/elif statements? Nooooooooooooo. In particular, the fourth case is far less comprehensible than it should be because we are having to rely on a function that returns the increment for c to modify a completely different variable, and then we have to figure out how to get it to return a 0 so that c won't actually be modified. Uuuuuugly.
Don't do this. In fact this code probably won't even run as-is, as I deemed it too ugly to test.
While there is nothing wrong with if..else, I find "switch in Python" still an intriguing problem statement. On that, I think Marcin's (deprecated) option (c) and/or Snim2's second variant can be written in a more readable way.
For this we can declare a switch class, and exploit the __init__() to declare the case we want to switch, while __call__() helps to hand over a dict listing the (case, function) pairs:
class switch(object):
def __init__(self, case):
self._case = case
def __call__(self, dict_):
try:
return dict_[self._case]()
except KeyError:
if 'else' in dict_:
return dict_['else']()
raise Exception('Given case wasn\'t found.')
Or, respectively, since a class with only two methods, of which one is __init__(), isn't really a class:
def switch(case):
def cases(dict_):
try:
return dict_[case]()
except KeyError:
if 'else' in dict_:
return dict_['else']()
raise Exception('Given case wasn\'t found.')
return cases
(note: choose something smarter than Exception)
With for example
def case_a():
print('hello world')
def case_b():
print('sth other than hello')
def default():
print('last resort')
you can call
switch('c') ({
'a': case_a,
'b': case_b,
'else': default
})
which, for this particular example would print
last resort
This doesn't behave like a C switch in that there is no break for the different cases, because each case executes only the function declared for the particular case (i.e. break is implicitly always called). Secondly, each case can list exactly only one function that will be executed upon a found case.

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