On 2021-05-24, Alan Gauld via Python-list <python-list@python.org> wrote: > On 24/05/2021 19:48, Grant Edwards wrote: > >>> Traceback ( File "<interactive input>", line 1 >>> if = 1.234 >>> ^ >>> SyntaxError: invalid syntax >> >> I must admit it might be nice if the compiler told you _why_ the >> syntax is invalid (e.g. "expected conditional expression while parsing >> 'if' statement"). > > Although wouldn't it be "expected boolean expression" rather than > conditional expression? Python doesn't care how the argument to 'if' > is arrived at so long as it's a boolean.
Indeed -- after posting that I realized that "conditional expression" was not the best phrase to choose because that's often used to refer to an expression involving the new ternary operator. I should have said "boolean valued expression". Though in the syntax for the ternary operator expression I've seen such a boolean valued expression called a "conditional expression". https://realpython.com/python-conditional-statements/ <expr1> if <conditional_expr> else <expr2> -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
