Short-circuit evaluation like Python's "and" while storing results of checks
<p>I have multiple expensive functions that return results.  I want to return a tuple of the results of all the checks if all the checks succeed.  However, if one check fails I don't want to call the later checks, like the short-circuiting behavior of <code>and</code>.  I could nest <code>if</code> statements, but that will get out of hand if there are a lot of checks.  How can I get the short-circuit behavior of <code>and</code> while also storing the results for later use?</p>

<pre><code>def check_a():
    # do something and return the result,
    # for simplicity, just make it "A"
    return "A"

def check_b():
    # do something and return the result,
    # for simplicity, just make it "B"
    return "B"

...
</code></pre>

<p>This doesn't short-circuit:</p>

<pre><code>a = check_a()
b = check_b()
c = check_c()

if a and b and c:
    return a, b, c
</code></pre>

<p>This is messy if there are many checks:</p>

<pre><code>if a:
   b = check_b()

   if b:
      c = check_c()

      if c:
          return a, b, c
</code></pre>

<p>Is there a shorter way to do this?</p>

<p>Just use a plain old for loop:</p>

<pre><code>results = {}
for function in [check_a, check_b, ...]:
    results[function.__name__] = result = function()
    if not result:
        break
</code></pre>

<p>The results will be a mapping of the function name to their return values, and you can do what you want with the values after the loop breaks.  </p>

<p>Use an <code>else</code> clause on the for loop if you want special handling for the case where all of the functions have returned truthy results.  </p>

python short-circuiting