Python ternary operator can't return multiple values?

Question

I know it's frowned upon by some, but I like using Python's ternary operator, as it makes simple if/else statements cleaner to read (I think). In any event, I've found that I can't do this:

>>> a,b = 1,2 if True else 0,0
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ValueError: too many values to unpack

The way I figured the ternary operator works is that it essentially builds the following:

if True:
  a,b = 1,2
else:
  a,b = 0,0

Could someone explain why my first code sample doesn't work? And, if there is one, provide a one-liner to assign multiple variables conditionally?

Answer 1

It's parsing that as three values, which are:

1,
2 if True else 0,
0

Therefore it becomes three values (1,2,0), which is more than the two values on the left side of the expression.

Try:

a,b = (1,2) if True else (0,0)