better way to return a selected value

[Skaperen]

which is better or more Pythonic?

A:

...
if s1 < s2:
    return -1
if s1 > s2:
    return 1
return 0

B:

...
if s1 < s2:
    x = -1
elif s1 > s2:
    x = 1
else:
    x = 0
return x

or, which way would you do it?

[Gribouillis]

The second way is probably better because there is only one return statement. However I would implement it like

>>> def cmp(x, y):
...     return -1 if x < y else (0 if x == y else 1)
... 

Note that this won't work exactly like the old Python 2's cmp() function because the latter allowed comparison of objects having incompatible types.

[Skaperen]

i read long ago that if...else was generally disliked and considered not very pythonic, though i like it (from my C background, i guess).

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Note that this won't work exactly like the old Python 2's cmp() function because the latter allowed comparison of objects having incompatible types

i'm mostly coding for only Python3, anymore.