Testing equality to None¶
ID: py/test-equals-none
Kind: problem
Security severity:
Severity: recommendation
Precision: very-high
Tags:
- efficiency
- maintainability
Query suites:
- python-security-and-quality.qls
Click to see the query in the CodeQL repository
When you compare an object to None, use is rather than ==. None is a singleton object, comparing using == invokes the __eq__ method on the object in question, which may be slower than identity comparison. Comparing to None using the is operator is also easier for other programmers to read.
Recommendation¶
Replace == with is.
Example¶
The filter2 function is likely to be more efficient than the filter1 function because it uses an identity comparison.
def filter1(function, iterable=None)
if iterable == None: # Comparison using '__eq__'
return [item for item in iterable if item]
else:
return [item for item in iterable if function(item)]
def filter2(function, iterable=None)
if iterable is None: # Comparison using identity
return [item for item in iterable if item]
else:
return [item for item in iterable if function(item)]
References¶
Python Language Reference: Comparisons, object.eq.