Difference in the Boolean of code 1 and code 2?

[jonathanessombe]

Question:
I am trying to create a program that finds people with first and last names using regular expressions. Does anyone know the difference between the Boolean in code 1 and code 2?
Repl link:
https://replit.com/@jonathanessombe/new-attempt#test.py

import re

names = ['Finn Bindeballe',
         'Geir Anders Berge',
         'HappyCodingRobot',
         'Ron Cromberge',
         'Sohil']

# Find people with first and last name only



# code 1
for name in names:
  reg = '^\w+\s+\w+'
  result = re.search(reg, name)
  if result == True:
    print(name)


# code 2
for name in names:
  reg = '^\w+\s+\w+'
  result = re.search(reg, name)
  if result:
    print(name)
    

[NuclearPasta0]

The function re.search returns a re.Match object. This object is never directly equal to True so the condition in code 1 always fails.
In code 2, the condition

if result:

is basically equivalent to:

if bool(result):

because python will convert the condition to a bool if it was not already one.

Most objects in python are “truthy”, meaning bool(o) is True. There are a few falsy objects, these include None (which re.search returns if the string does not match), False, number objects equal to 0, and empty collections.

Therefore, code 2 condition only fails if re.search does not match (returning None).

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