Question

I want to determine if a list contains a certain string, so I use a generator expression, like so:

g = (s for s in myList if s == myString)
any(g)

Of course I want to inline this, so I do:

any((s for s in myList if s == myString))

Then I think it would look nicer with single parens, so I try:

any(s for s in myList if s == myString)

not really expecting it work. Surprise! it does!

So is this legal Python or just something my implementation allows? If it’s legal, what is the general rule here?

Answer 1

It is legal, and the general rule is that you do need parentheses around a generator expression. As a special exception, the parentheses from a function call also count (for functions with only a single parameter). (Documentation)

Note that testing if my_string appears in my_list is as easy as

my_string in my_list

No generator expression or call to any() needed!