Operators

Short-circuiting in Logical Operators

Python’s logical Operators (and, or) employ short-circuiting. This means that the evaluation of the expression stops as soon as the final outcome is known.

• and: If the left operand is falsy (evaluates to False), the entire expression is falsy, and the right operand is not evaluated.

x = 0
y = 1/0  # This will cause an error if executed

result = x and y 
print(result) # Output: 0 (no ZeroDivisionError)

• or: If the left operand is truthy (evaluates to True), the entire expression is truthy, and the right operand is not evaluated.

x = 1
y = 1/0 # This will cause an error if executed

result = x or y
print(result) # Output: 1 (no ZeroDivisionError)

Practical Implications:

• Avoiding Errors: Short-circuiting is crucial for preventing errors like the ZeroDivisionError shown above. We can use it to check for valid conditions before attempting operations that might fail.

• Improved Efficiency: If the right operand is computationally expensive, short-circuiting avoids unnecessary calculations.

Truthy and Falsy Values (Error Handling in Python)