How to use if/else in single line (python -c)?

Question

I have just started learning python and I am trying to use if/else statement in python -c, but I keep getting Invalid Syntax error. The reason I want to call if/else with python -c is because I want to call some python modules with if/else in my bash script. Is it possible and I would like to stick to python -c and not python -m?

Below is what I have tried so far

Try 1

python -c "if False: print 'not working';else print 'working'"
  File "<string>", line 1
    if False: print 'not working';else print 'working'
                                     ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Try 2

python -c "if False:    print 'not working';else:    print 'working'"
  File "<string>", line 1
    if False:    print 'not working';else:    print 'working'
                                        ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Try3

python -c "if False:;    print 'not working';else:;    print 'working'"
  File "<string>", line 1
    if False:;    print 'not working';else:;    print 'working'
             ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Any suggestions on how I can fix this issue?

And what if I want to use if|elif|elif|else kind of statement?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

For a true general-purpose solution -- python -c is not limited to single lines.

python -c '
if True:
  print "hello"
else:
  print "world"
'

Of course, you can format your multi-line string as a single line, if you really want to:

python -c $'if True:\n\tprint "hello"'\nelse:\n\tprint "world"'

...but, also quite obviously, this is a Really Bad Idea.

If you really, really want to wrap Python code in shell, why not use functions? Even better than that, why not use quoted heredocs for your code? (Doing this lets you keep the code itself literal, passing arguments through argv).

python_argv_repr() {
  python - "$@" <<'EOF'
import sys
print sys.argv[1:]
EOF
}

Answer 2

Make it simple, use the ternary form:

$ python -c "print 'A' if False else 'B'"