Convert empty string to zero

Question

I'm doing something like this to sum up all values from start to end.

big_list = line.split(delim)
sum( [int(float(item)) for item in big_list[start:end]] )

Sometimes an element of big_list may be empty, in which case the conversion fails. Can I make it work with empty strings in an elegant way, without changing too much above?

Answer 1

Assuming that empty elements should be zero:

sum(int(float(item)) for item in big_list[start:end] if item)
                                                   # ^ skip over ""

Note that:

1. sum can take the generator expression as an argument, there's no need to build the list; and
2. An empty string "" evaluates False-y, so this is equivalent to if item != "".