Understanding Python’s Short-circuit Evaluation: Simplifying Conditional Logic

Learn How Short-circuit Evaluation Can Streamline Your Python Code

Max N
2 min readMar 22, 2024

Python’s short-circuit evaluation is a powerful feature that allows for concise and efficient conditional logic in your programs. In this article, we’ll explore the concept of short-circuit evaluation, its behavior with logical operators, and practical examples of its usage.

Introduction to Short-circuit Evaluation

Short-circuit evaluation is a concept where the evaluation of a boolean expression stops as soon as the result is determined. In Python, this behavior can lead to more efficient and concise code.

Behavior with Logical Operators

Python’s logical operators (and and or) exhibit short-circuit behavior. With and, if the first operand evaluates to False, the second operand is not evaluated because the overall expression will be False. Similarly, with or, if the first operand evaluates to True, the second operand is not evaluated because the overall expression will be True.

Example 1: Short-circuit Behavior with and Operator:

x = 5
if x > 0 and x < 10:
print("x is between 0 and 10")

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Max N
Max N

Written by Max N

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