The or-gotcha
Last Updated: February 3, 2018 12:20 PM UTC
Last edited by:
Joseph <joseph@josephbanks.me>
Initial Commit
THIS IS FAKE DEMO DATA

When checking if something is equal to one thing or another, you might think that this is possible: 

# Incorrect...
if favorite_fruit == 'grapefruit' or 'lemon':
    print("That's a weird favorite fruit to have.")
While this makes sense in English, it may not behave the way you would expect. In Python, you should have complete instructions on both sides of the logical operator.

So, if you want to check if something is equal to one thing or another, there are two common ways: 

# Like this...
if favorite_fruit == 'grapefruit' or favorite_fruit == 'lemon':
    print("That's a weird favorite fruit to have.")

# ...or like this.
if favorite_fruit in ('grapefruit', 'lemon'):
    print("That's a weird favorite fruit to have.")