Question

Using python 2.7, I have the following code:

if result != None:
    (data,) = result
    return data

return None

The result variable is returned from a sqlite3 query that returns only one value. If the query returns a result, I want to unpack and return the data, otherwise I want to return None. The code above seems overly verbose and not at all pythonic. Is there a better way?

Answer 1

You could use a if else condition:

return result[0] if result is not None else None

or simplify this down to:

return result[0] if result else None

if you don’t care about result possibly being some other false-y value such as an empty tuple and such.