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Booleans

Boolean algebra is that subset of algebra in which the values of the variables are the truth values: true and false. In Python, True and False are two keywords that are used to represent truth values. Booleans are a subclass of integers, and behave respectively like 1 and 0. The equivalent of the int class for Booleans is the bool class, which returns either True or False. Every built-in Python object has a value in the Boolean context, which means they basically evaluate to either True or False when fed to the bool function. We'll see all about this in Chapter 3, Iterating and Making Decisions.

Boolean values can be combined in Boolean expressions using the logical operators and, or, and not. Again, we'll see them in full in the next chapter, so for now let's just see a simple example:

>>> int(True)  # True behaves like 1
1
>>> int(False)  # False behaves like 0
0
>>> bool(1)  # 1 evaluates to True in a boolean context
True
>>> bool(-42)  # and so does every non-zero number
True
>>> bool(0)  # 0 evaluates to False
False
>>> # quick peak at the operators (and, or, not)
>>> not True
False
>>> not False
True
>>> True and True
True
>>> False or True
True

You can see that True and False are subclasses of integers when you try to add them. Python upcasts them to integers and performs the addition:

>>> 1 + True
2
>>> False + 42
42
>>> 7 - True
6

Upcasting is a type conversion operation that goes from a subclass to its parent. In the example presented here, True and False, which belong to a class derived from the integer class, are converted back to integers when needed. This topic is about inheritance and will be explained in detail in Chapter 6, OOP, Decorators, and Iterators.