The ternary operator in Python allows you to quickly define a conditional.

Let’s say you have a function that compares an age variable to the 18 value, and return True or False depending on the result.

Instead of writing:

def is_adult(age):
    if age > 18:
        return True
    else:
        return False

You can implement it with the ternary operator in this way:

def is_adult(age):
    return True if age > 18 else False

First you define the result if the condition is True, then you evaluate the condition, then you define the result if the condition is false:

<result_if_true> if <condition> else <result_if_false>