In Python how should I test if a variable is None, True or False

Question

I have a function that can return one of three things:

• success (True)
• failure (False)
• error reading/parsing stream

Answer 1

if result is None:
    print "error parsing stream"
elif result:
    print "result pass"
else:
    print "result fail"

keep it simple and explicit. You can of course pre-define a dictionary.

messages = {None: 'error', True: 'pass', False: 'fail'}
print messages[result]

If you plan on modifying your simulate function to include more return codes, maintaining this code might become a bit of an issue.

The simulate might also raise an exception on the parsing error, in which case you'd either would catch it here or let it propagate a level up and the printing bit would be reduced to a one-line if-else statement.