Different values in Python can be described as being "truthy" or "falsy" even if they aren't Boolean values, which means they are interpreted as True or False in a situation that expects a Boolean value (such as an if condition). As defined in the documentation, every value in Python, regardless of type, is interpreted as being True except for the following values (which are interpreted as False):
- Constants defined to be false:
None and False.
- Zero of any numeric type:
0, 0.0, 0j, Decimal(0), Fraction(0, 1)
- Empty sequences and collections:
'', (), [], {}, set(), range(0)
To your specific situation, using the if situation, the following statement:
if None:
# some code here
would be functionally identical to:
if False:
# some code here
This is because, as shown in the list above, the value None is automatically converted to False for the purposes of the if condition. This is something referred to as "syntactic sugar", which is a feature of the language that exists to make the developer's life easier.
However, just because None is interpreted as False in this particular scenario, that doesn't mean the two values are equal to each other. This is because False is meant to be part of the True/False pair indicating binary concepts like "yes/no", "on/off", etc. None, on the other hand, represents the concept of nothing. Variables with a value of None means they have no value at all. To compare it to False in the form of a metaphor, False would be like answering somebody by saying "No", where None would be like not answering them at all.
As a more practical example, see the following code snippet:
if None == False:
# code in here would not execute because None is not equal to False
