In Python, what is the difference between expressions and statements?
Expressions only contain identifiers, literals and operators, where operators include arithmetic and boolean operators, the function call operator () the subscription operator [] and similar, and can be reduced to some kind of "value", which can be any Python object. Examples:
3 + 5
map(lambda x: x*x, range(10))
[a.x for a in some_iterable]
yield 7
Statements (see 1, 2), on the other hand, are everything that can make up a line (or several lines) of Python code. Note that expressions are statements as well. Examples:
# all the above expressions
print 42
if x: do_y()
return
a = 7
Expression -- from the New Oxford American Dictionary:
expression: Mathematics a collection
of symbols that jointly express a
quantity : the expression for the
circumference of a circle is 2πr.
In gross general terms: Expressions produce at least one value.
In Python, expressions are covered extensively in the Python Language Reference In general, expressions in Python are composed of a syntactically legal combination of Atoms, Primaries and Operators.
Python expressions from Wikipedia
Examples of expressions:
Literals and syntactically correct combinations with Operators and built-in functions or the call of a user-written functions:
>>> 23
23
>>> 23l
23L
>>> range(4)
[0, 1, 2, 3]
>>> 2L*bin(2)
'0b100b10'
>>> def func(a): # Statement, just part of the example...
... return a*a # Statement...
...
>>> func(3)*4
36
>>> func(5) is func(a=5)
True
Statement from Wikipedia:
In computer programming a statement
can be thought of as the smallest
standalone element of an imperative
programming language. A program is
formed by a sequence of one or more
statements. A statement will have
internal components (e.g.,
expressions).
Python statements from Wikipedia
In gross general terms: Statements Do Something and are often composed of expressions (or other statements)
The Python Language Reference covers Simple Statements and Compound Statements extensively.
The distinction of "Statements do something" and "expressions produce a value" distinction can become blurry however:
List Comprehensions are considered "Expressions" but they have looping constructs and therfore also Do Something.
The if is usually a statement, such as if x<0: x=0 but you can also have a conditional expression like x=0 if x<0 else 1 that are expressions. In other languages, like C, this form is called an operator like this x=x<0?0:1;
You can write you own Expressions by writing a function. def func(a): return a*a is an expression when used but made up of statements when defined.
An expression that returns None is a procedure in Python: def proc(): pass Syntactically, you can use proc() as an expression, but that is probably a bug...
Python is a bit more strict than say C is on the differences between an Expression and Statement. In C, any expression is a legal statement. You can have func(x=2); Is that an Expression or Statement? (Answer: Expression used as a Statement with a side-effect.) The assignment statement of x=2 inside of the function call of func(x=2) in Python sets the named argument a to 2 only in the call to func and is more limited than the C example.
Though this isn't related to Python:
An expression evaluates to a value.
A statement does something.
>>> x + 2 # an expression
>>> x = 1 # a statement
>>> y = x + 1 # a statement
>>> print y # a statement (in 2.x)
2
An expression is something that can be reduced to a value, for example "1+3" is an expression, but "foo = 1+3" is not.
It's easy to check:
print(foo = 1+3)
If it doesn't work, it's a statement, if it does, it's an expression.
Another statement could be:
class Foo(Bar): pass
as it cannot be reduced to a value.
Statements represent an action or command e.g print statements, assignment statements.
print 'hello', x = 1
Expression is a combination of variables, operations and values that yields a result value.
5 * 5 # yields 25
Lastly, expression statements
print 5*5
An expression is something, while a statement does something.
An expression is a statement as well, but it must have a return.
>>> 2 * 2 #expression
>>> print(2 * 2) #statement
PS:The interpreter always prints out the values of all expressions.
An expression is a statement that returns a value. So if it can appear on the right side of an assignment, or as a parameter to a method call, it is an expression.
Some code can be both an expression or a statement, depending on the context. The language may have a means to differentiate between the two when they are ambiguous.
STATEMENT:
A Statement is a action or a command that does something. Ex: If-Else,Loops..etc
val a: Int = 5
If(a>5) print("Hey!") else print("Hi!")
EXPRESSION:
A Expression is a combination of values, operators and literals which yields something.
val a: Int = 5 + 5 #yields 10
Expressions always evaluate to a value, statements don't.
e.g.
variable declaration and assignment are statements because they do not return a value
const list = [1,2,3];
Here we have two operands - a variable 'sum' on the left and an expression on the right.
The whole thing is a statement, but the bit on the right is an expression as that piece of code returns a value.
const sum = list.reduce((a, b)=> a+ b, 0);
Function calls, arithmetic and boolean operations are good examples of expressions.
Expressions are often part of a statement.
The distinction between the two is often required to indicate whether we require a pice of code to return a value.
References
Expressions and statements
2.3 Expressions and statements - thinkpython2 by Allen B. Downey
2.10. Statements and Expressions - How to Think like a Computer Scientist by Paul Resnick and Brad Miller
An expression is a combination of values, variables, and operators. A value all by itself is
considered an expression, and so is a variable, so the following are all legal expressions:
>>> 42
42
>>> n
17
>>> n + 25
42
When you type an expression at the prompt, the interpreter evaluates it, which means that
it finds the value of the expression. In this example, n has the value 17 and n + 25 has the
value 42.
A statement is a unit of code that has an effect, like creating a variable or displaying a
value.
>>> n = 17
>>> print(n)
The first line is an assignment statement that gives a value to n. The second line is a print
statement that displays the value of n.
When you type a statement, the interpreter executes it, which means that it does whatever
the statement says. In general, statements don’t have values.
An expression translates to a value.
A statement consumes a value* to produce a result**.
*That includes an empty value, like: print() or pop().
**This result can be any action that changes something; e.g. changes the memory ( x = 1) or changes something on the screen ( print("x") ).
A few notes:
Since a statement can return a result, it can be part of an expression.
An expression can be part of another expression.
Statements before could change the state of our Python program: create or update variables, define function, etc.
And expressions just return some value can't change the global state or local state in a function.
But now we got :=, it's an alien!
Expressions:
Expressions are formed by combining objects and operators.
An expression has a value, which has a type.
Syntax for a simple expression:<object><operator><object>
2.0 + 3 is an expression which evaluates to 5.0 and has a type float associated with it.
Statements
Statements are composed of expression(s). It can span multiple lines.
A statement contains a keyword.
An expression does not contain a keyword.
print "hello" is statement, because print is a keyword.
"hello" is an expression, but list compression is against this.
The following is an expression statement, and it is true without list comprehension:
(x*2 for x in range(10))
Python calls expressions "expression statements", so the question is perhaps not fully formed.
A statement consists of pretty much anything you can do in Python: calculating a value, assigning a value, deleting a variable, printing a value, returning from a function, raising an exception, etc. The full list is here: http://docs.python.org/reference/simple_stmts.html#
An expression statement is limited to calling functions (e.g.,
math.cos(theta)"), operators ( e.g., "2+3"), etc. to produce a value.
In my program I do a series of sequential checks in this manner:
var value int
if !(ParseOrFail(inputStrVal, &value) &&
Validate(value)) {
return SomeErr
}
I know that Validate is called only if ParseOrFail returns true, but I'm not sure whether in all such scenarios it will get the updated value.
Is it correct to do so? Or must I pass a pointer to Validate ?
Playground link: https://play.golang.org/p/l6XHbgQjFs
The Go Programming Language
Specification
Expressions
An expression specifies the computation of a value by applying
operators and functions to operands.
Operands
Operands denote the elementary values in an expression. An operand may
be a literal, a (possibly qualified) non-blank identifier denoting a
constant, variable, or function, a method expression yielding a
function, or a parenthesized expression.
Order of evaluation
At package level, initialization dependencies determine the evaluation
order of individual initialization expressions in variable
declarations. Otherwise, when evaluating the operands of an
expression, assignment, or return statement, all function calls,
method calls, and communication operations are evaluated in lexical
left-to-right order.
Calls
Given an expression f of function type F,
f(a1, a2, … an)
calls f with arguments a1, a2, … an. Except for one special case,
arguments must be single-valued expressions assignable to the
parameter types of F and are evaluated before the function is called.
The type of the expression is the result type of F. A method
invocation is similar but the method itself is specified as a selector
upon a value of the receiver type for the method.
Logical operators
Logical operators apply to boolean values and yield a result of the
same type as the operands. The right operand is evaluated
conditionally.
&& conditional AND p && q is "if p then q else false"
|| conditional OR p || q is "if p then true else q"
! NOT !p is "not p"
The behavior of your code is defined in The Go Programming Language Specification.
var value int
if !(ParseOrFail(inputStrVal, &value) && Validate(value)) {
return SomeErr
}
Or, in pseudocode,
ParseOrFail arguments are evaluated
ParseOrFail is called
if ParseOrFail == true
Validate arguments are evaluated
Validate is called
That is, in your example (https://play.golang.org/p/l6XHbgQjFs), late evaluation.
Say I have the following statement logic (I'll be using VBA for this example, but it also pertains to other languages)
x = 1
y = 2
z = 1000
If x = 1 Or y = 2 Or z = 4 Then
Execute Code
End
Does the compiler or executing program find that the first value is true, and then continue to Execute Code or does it finish off the rest of the statement?
I can't speak for VBA, but I can say that it is language specific. In some languages, the programmer has the ability to use "short-circuit" AND and OR expressions. Short-circuiting is the process of no longer evaluating a boolean expression if the result has already been determined.
If using a short-circuited AND, the boolean operation stops early if a FALSE is found. If using a short-circuited OR, the boolean operation stops early if a TRUE is found.
For example, in Java:
a || b is a short-circuited OR
a | b is a non-short-circuited OR
a && b is a short-circuited AND
a & b is a non-short-circuited AND
Some may ask, "why would I ever use a non-short-circuited AND or OR?" The reason for this comes when you are calling a function that returns a boolean that you want to run in every case. For example a() | b() would run both function a and function b. a() || b() only runs function b if a returns false.
I think that also in vba you can use OrElse.
'Or' (bitwise comparison) always finishes the rest of the statement, 'OrElse' (logical comparison) stops when the requirement is met.
In C++, C# and Java you can use '|' and '||'.
For example if object is null Or object.value = "" will result in a null exception when the object is empty because of the attempt to access a field from an empty object.
With OrElse the evaluation if object is null OrElse object.value = "" will stop at the first comparison when an empty object is evaluated.
I recently dealt with code using a strongly typed enum that contained negative values.
When comparing the values of the enum, I got weird results when compiling the code with Clang (3.3) while Gcc works just fine.
Here is a small example with an assert that fails.
enum class T: int { A = -1, B = 1 };
int main() {
T a = T::A, b = T::B;
assert(a < b);
}
Is this an actual bug? Or does clang behave correctly and gcc just offers some kind of legacy support?
It should be more intuitive that the following is well-formed:
T a = T::A;
assert(a == T::A);
But the equality operators (==, !=) have the same restrictions as the relational operators (<, <=, ..) [expr.eq]/1:
The == (equal to) and the != (not equal to) operators have the same semantic restrictions, conversions, and result type as the relational operators except for their lower precedence and truth-value result.
So if equality between values of a scoped enumeration type is well-defined, so should < be.
[expr.rel]/1
The operands shall have arithmetic, enumeration, or pointer type, or type std::nullptr_t.
Of course, the usual arithmetic conversions are performed on operands of arithmetic or enumeration type [expr.rel]/2, where the conversion is the identity conversion for scoped enumerations (no integral promotion, see [expr]/10 first bullet). However, [expr.rel]/5 explicitly states:
If both operands (after conversions) are of arithmetic or enumeration type, each of the operators shall yield
true if the specified relationship is true and false if it is false.
(emphasis mine)
Therefore, T::A < T::B should be well-formed and yield true.
As I already wrote in a comment, the assertion doesn't fail on clang++3.4 trunk 193040. I therefore assume it's a bug that has been fixed, even though I couldn't find a corresponding bug report.
Here is code
def tmp
a = ancestors.first(ancestors.index(ActiveRecord::Base))
b = a.sum([]) { |m| m.public_instance_methods(false) |
m.private_instance_methods(false) |
m.protected_instance_methods(false) }
b.map {|m| m.to_s }.to_set
end
I thought | is bitwise OR operator. So how come b contains non boolean values?
It would have helped if you said what your code was supposed to do, but I think I finally got it. The | that you have is not an OR at all, neither bitwise nor logical. It is an array union operation. Look it up under Array rubydoc. It takes Array arguments and gives an Array result consisting of all elements that are in either array.
Since pretty much everything in Ruby is an object (aside from blocks, not relevant here), there are no absolute "operators" except for simple assignment. Every operator is in fact a method defined on some class, and therefore contextual.
Also, as someone rightly pointed out (deleted now), bitwise OR deals with integers, not booleans: 7 | 12 == 15. Logical or || deals with boolean values, but it too can return a non-boolean, since strictly speaking everything except for nil and false is true. Thus, 7 || 12 returns 7, not true (which is still equivalent to true in most contexts).
UPDATE: I've overlooked the fact that || and &&, when used on a Boolean object, can not actually be defined in Ruby, because of their short-circuit semantics. This nevertheless does not change the fact that they behave like methods of Boolean.