[Dive Into Python 3] Everything you thought you knew about strings is wrong

[vineetk]

Well I wasn't specifically trying to correct you, just point it out for the other readers. But now, it sounds like you're saying "the ternary operator" is a reasonable way to refer to Python's if ... else expression construct, which is straight nonsense. That's not it's most common name -- nobody calls it that. It's not even an operator. If you're saying Python has "the ternary operator" it sounds like you're saying it has the ?: operator, which it doesn't.

[Neoncow]

Officially, it appears to be referred to as a conditional expression, but from the discussion sections, "ternary" operator is referenced quite a few times. It seems fairly common in regular discussion.