Does Python have an "or equals" function like ||= in Ruby?
Solution 1:
Jon-Eric's answer's is good for dicts, but the title seeks a general equivalent to ruby's ||= operator.
A common way to do something like ||= in Python is
x = x or new_value
Solution 2:
dict has setdefault().
So if request.session is a dict:
request.session.setdefault('thing_for_purpose', 5)