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Assigning variables with Boolean operators

You can use the fact that and and or are short-circuit operators to assign objects to variables in intelligent ways. Pretend that you are deciding what actions you should take with a client's account based on what they entered in a web-form. Unfortunately, they could submit the form with this field empty, so you need to set a default action just in case. The supplied variable input_action has the contents submitted by the client. The supplied variable is_trading_day is True if today is a day that trades are possible.

This exercise is part of the course

Intermediate Python for Finance

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Exercise instructions

  • If your client entered an action, assign it to the variable action. If they entered nothing, use the default action "Hold".
  • Assign the action to the variable do_action if trades can be done today, otherwise assign it as False.
  • Print the action that should be done.

Hands-on interactive exercise

Have a go at this exercise by completing this sample code.

# Assign a default action if no input
action = input_action ____ "Hold"

# Print the action
print(action)

# Assign action only if trades can be made
do_action = is_trading_day ____ action

# Print the action to do
____(____)
Edit and Run Code