Move from Excel to Python with Pandas Transcripts
Chapter: Appendix: Python language concepts
Lecture: Concept: Truthiness

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0:03 Any interesting program has conditional tests
0:06 and various branching control structures in it.
0:08 And many of these control structures you have to pass some kind of test,
0:12 a boolean, a True or False value.
0:15 Go down this path, or don't. Continue looping through this loop or stop.
0:18 Let's talk for a moment about this general idea of True and False in Python;
0:22 and I am referring to it as truthiness, because in Python
0:26 all objects are imbued with either a True value or a False value.
0:30 And the easiest way to understand this is to think of the list of things that are False,
0:34 they are clearly spelled out, it's right here- False, the keyword False,
0:37 the boolean keyword False is false obviously.
0:40 But things that might not be so obvious to that are False,
0:43 are as well, for example any empty sequence,
0:46 so an empty list, an empty dictionary, an empty set, empty strings.
0:50 All of these things are False, even though they point to a real life object.
0:55 We also have the zero values being False,
0:58 so integer zero and floating point zero - False.
1:02 Finally, if you have some kind of pointer and it points to nothing,
1:05 so the keyword none, that is also considered to be False.
1:09 Now, there is this small addition where you can overwrite
1:12 certain methods in your custom types to define False,
1:15 but outside of this list, and those implementations, everything else is true.
1:19 So if it's not in this list and it's not a custom implementation of a magic method
1:23 that describes the truthiness of an object, you pretty much know the way it works.
1:27 Now, in Python, we often leverage this truthiness or falseness of objects,
1:32 so we might do an "if" test just on a list to see if it's empty,
1:37 rather than testing for the length of the list to be greater than zero, things like that.
1:41 So you'll run into this all the time
1:43 and it's really important to keep in mind what's True and what's False.