Difference between is and equal in Python

In Python, there are two operators for determining equality: is and ==; however, what are the differences between them and when should one be used over the other?

What is the difference between the is and ==

1. The is operator checks for object identity
2. The == operator checks for equality

Here is an example demonstrating the differences:

1foo = [1, 2, 3]
2bar = foo
3print(foo is bar) # True
4print(foo == bar) # True

In the example above, bar points to the same object reference as foo. Because foo and bar point to the same object, is reports true.

If a copy of foo’s list is assigned to bar,

1bar = foo[:]
2print(foo is bar) # False
3print(foo == bar) # True

is reports False since the two variables do not point to the same object.

When to use which?

As a general rule of thumb, use the is operator for the following use-cases:

1. Verify if two objects are the same object (not just the value)
2. Comparison against constants: None.

As stated in the PEP 8 style guide,

Comparisons to singletons like None should always be done with is or is not, never the equality operators.

Outside of those two use cases, default to using the == or != operators.