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Q&A

Why are list comprehensions written differently if you use `else`?

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The following list comprehension worked when I tried it:

[num for num in hand if num != 11]

But this doesn't work:

[num for num in hand if num != 11 else 22]

which led me to believe that you can't use else in a list comprehension. However, it seems that you can, but it has to be written differently. This works:

[num if num != 11 else 22 for num in hand]

Why does the if need to be placed earlier in the comprehension if you use else with it?

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1 answer

+14
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It's not a matter of order; Python simply does not directly allow else clauses as part of list comprehensions (docs). When we use

[num if num != 11 else 22 for num in hand]

We are actually using Python's version of the ternary operator; the if and else are not part of the list comprehension itself but of the comprehension expression. That is, the above is actually

[(num if num != 11 else 22) for num in hand]
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To add, the if at the end of the list comprehension is a predicate (3 comments)

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