Can I optionally include one element in a list without an else statement in python?

Question

I know you can do something like this in python:

>>> conditional = False
>>> x = [1 if conditional else 2, 3, 4]
[ 2, 3, 4 ]

Answer 1

If you truly want to avoid the else, you could write a generator for the list items:

def gen_x(conditional):
    if conditional:
        yield 1
    for v in [3, 4]:
        yield v

Or, since Python 3.3:

def gen_x(conditional):
    if conditional:
        yield 1
    yield from [3, 4]

And then:

x = list(gen_x(conditional))