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18.2: Boolean Expressions

  • Page ID
    15377
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    A boolean expression is an expression that is either true or false. The following examples use the operator ==, which compares two operands and produces True if they are equal and False otherwise:

    >>> 5 == 5
    True
    >>> 5 == 6
    False
    

    True and False are special values that belong to the type bool; they are not strings:

    >>> type(True)
    <type 'bool'>
    >>> type(False)
    <type 'bool'>
    

    The == operator is one of the relational operators; the others are:

          x != y               # x is not equal to y
          x > y                # x is greater than y
          x < y                # x is less than y
          x >= y               # x is greater than or equal to y
          x <= y               # x is less than or equal to y
    

    Although these operations are probably familiar to you, the Python symbols are different from the mathematical symbols. A common error is to use a single equal sign (=) instead of a double equal sign (==). Remember that = is an assignment operator and == is a relational operator. There is no such thing as =< or =>.


    This page titled 18.2: Boolean Expressions is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Allen B. Downey (Green Tea Press) .

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