Python None Constant

Python None constant is used to represent a null value, a missing value, or no value.

Setting a variable to None

To set a variable None, just use the None keyword.

>>> a = None
>>> type(a)
<class 'NoneType'>

None starts with uppercase N

None starts with capital N. Lowercase n does not work.

>>> a = none
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: name 'none' is not defined. Did you mean: 'None'?

None (with uppercase N) is a reserved word in Python. You can't assign anything to None.

>>> None = 123
  File "<stdin>", line 1
    None = 123
    ^^^^
SyntaxError: cannot assign to None

On the contrary, you are free to name a variable none (though this is not recommended as it may confuse human readers of your code).

>>> none = 123
>>> type(none)
<class 'int'>

None and True/False

In boolean operations, None evaluates to False.

>>> bool(None)
False

But None equals neither False nor True.

>>> None == False
False
>>> None == True
False

Using is None vs. == None

To test whether a variable is None, use the is (identity) operator.

>>> a = None
>>> a is None
True

In most cases, a is None works exactly the same as a == None, but there may be cases when they behave differently (if the class of the variable a custom implements the equality operator __eq__() in an unusual way).

Moreover, is is considerably faster than ==, which makes no practical difference for a single variable evaluation, but can have measurable effect when comparing a million variables to None.

Bottom line: Use is None, unless you have a special reason to use == None.

None vs. Nonetype

The None constant has its own special data type NoneType.

>>> type(None)
<class 'NoneType'>

So there is a subtle difference:

• None = constant
• NoneType = data type of the None constant