Python's Logical Operator AND

Question

I'm a little confused with the results I'm getting with the logical operators in Python. I'm a beginner and studying with the use of a few books, but they don't explain in as much detail as I'd like.

here is my own code:

five = 5 two = 2  print five and two  >> 2 

It seems to be just outputting the two variable.

five = 5 two = 2 zero = 0  print five and two and zero 

So, I added another variable integer. Then I printed and got the following output:

>> 0 

What is going on with Python in the background? Why isn't the output something like 7 or 5, 2.

Answer 1

Python Boolean operators return the last value evaluated, not True/False. The docs have a good explanation of this:

The expression x and y first evaluates x; if x is false, its value is returned; otherwise, y is evaluated and the resulting value is returned.

Answer 2

As a bit of a side note: (i don't have enough rep for a comment) The AND operator is not needed for printing multiple variables. You can simply separate variable names with commas such as print five, two instead of print five AND two. You can also use escapes to add variables to a print line such as print "the var five is equal to: %s" %five. More on that here: http://docs.python.org/2/library/re.html#simulating-scanf

Like others have said AND is a logical operator and used to string together multiple conditions, such as

if (five == 5) AND (two == 2):     print five, two