or — Intermediate Playground

Logical OR operator; returns True if at least one operand is true

Python Playground

# or returns the first truthy value, or the last value
print(0 or "default")
print("" or "fallback")
print(None or [] or "last resort")
print("first" or "second")

# Default value pattern
name = ""
display_name = name or "Anonymous"
print(f"Hello, {display_name}")

# Configuration defaults
config = {}
debug = config.get("debug") or False
host = config.get("host") or "localhost"
port = config.get("port") or 8080
print(f"{host}:{port} (debug={debug})")

Output

Click "Run" to execute your code

'or' short-circuits: it returns the first truthy value. This is a common pattern for default values, but beware: 0, False, and '' are all falsy.

Challenge

Try modifying the code above to explore different behaviors. Can you extend the example to handle a new use case?

View all Intermediate examples for or