Set a variable equal to result if result exists

Question

This seems very verbose, particularly with long function names, is there a better way to do this in Python?

if someRandomFunction():
    variable = someRandomFunction()

Edit: For more context variable is not already defined, and it will be a new node on a tree. I only want to create this node if someRandomFunction() returns a value. And someRandomFunction() is supposed to return the string representation of some node from a different type of tree.

Answer 1

Could you:

variable = someRandomFunction() or variable

See Boolean Operations in the Python documentation for more information.

Answer 2

temp= someRandomFunction()
if temp:
    variable = temp

Answer 3

(Apparently you can't delete your answers if you haven't registered.)

These are not the droids you're looking for... move along...

Answer 4

A bit unorthodox perhaps, but you could modify someRandomFunction() so that it saves its last result in a function attribute before returning it, you could then do this.

def someRandomFunction():
    ...
    someRandomFunction.result = <...>
    return someRandomFunction.result

if someRandomFunction():
    variable = someRandomFunction.result

Answer 5

I don't think your answer is too verbose. It says exactly what it does. However, since you've already said it's too verbose for your tastes I would opt for the

s = myFunc() or someVariable

approach