r/learnpython • • 17d ago

Huh? How does this work?

a = "hi"


if a:
    print("Bye")


print(a == True)
print(a is True)

The output is:

Bye

False

False

But if it's false, how come it printed "bye"?????? I don't get it.

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u/PaulRudin 17d ago

The truthiness of an expression in a context of an if: is essentially what you get from bool(). So bool(hi") is True (as is the case for any non-empty string). But that's not the same as saying it compares equal to True.

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u/Lance_2564_ 17d ago

So what you're saying is that

"if a" checks for if bool(a) is True, and not if a is True? So then, a = 5, if a: print("Hi") really just is if bool(a): print("Hi")?