Python check if there's any empty string in multiple strings

Question

I know it's a basic question but please bear with me. Let's say if we have 4 strings below:

a = ''
b = 'apple'
c = 'orange'
d = 'banana'

So, normally if I want to check if any of the three string a b c is empty, I could use len() function.

if len(a) == 0 or len(b) == 0 or len(c) == 0:
    return True

But then I thought it is too troublesome to write like above if I have many strings. So, I used

if not a:
    return True

But, when i am checking for multiple strings b c d using the above method, it returns True and I am puzzled as non of the strings b c d where empty.

if not b or c or d:
    return True

What is going on?

I suspect you may be expecting too much of the or operator. See stackoverflow.com/questions/15112125/if-x-or-y-or-z-blah. It's not quite clear whether this is a precedence confusion, a misunderstanding of what or really does, or something else. — user2357112
– user2357112, Commented May 7, 2014 at 1:37

James Scholes · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-07 01:36:01Z

9

The problem lies with this line:

if not b or c or d:

You need to include the "not" condition for each string. So:

if not b or not c or not d:

You could also do it like this:

    return '' in [a, b, c, d]

answered May 7, 2014 at 1:36

James Scholes

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peakxu · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-07 01:35:52Z

3

The not operator has higher precedence than or.

return not b or not c or not d

should work.

answered May 7, 2014 at 1:35

peakxu

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