How Can I Implement Logical XOR for Non-Boolean Variables in Python?

Xor Operation in Python: Beyond Bitwise Logic

Understanding the logical XOR operation in Python can be tricky, especially when comparing non-boolean variables like strings. The bitwise ^ operator, commonly used for bitwise XOR, falls short for this purpose.

Solution: Boolean XOR

If the goal is to check if exactly one of two variables contains a True value, a simple solution is the != operator. This checks if the boolean values of the two variables differ. So, for strings:

<code class="python">bool(str1) != bool(str2)</code>

This will return True if one variable is not None or an empty string while the other is, fulfilling the XOR condition.

Example

Using the example code:

<code class="python">str1 = input("Enter string one:")
str2 = input("Enter string two:")
if bool(str1) != bool(str2):
    print("ok")
else:
    print("bad")</code>

This code will correctly determine whether only one string contains a non-empty value and print "ok" in that case.

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