Why does True & True give False?

Question

>>> 5 > 4 & 6 > 5

Why does the above expression give False in Python, if 5 > 4 is True and 6 > 5 is also True ?

Answer 1

Because & (bitwise "and") has a higher precedence than > , so 5 > 4 & 6 > 5 is actually evaluated as 5 > 4 > 5 which is obviously False .

Operator precedence on Python docs.

Answer 2

In python the & operator represents the bitwise AND operator , which basically takes the binary form of an integer, and masks the binary form of the first number by the second number.

For example, 10 & 3 returns 2 because the binary form of 10 is 1010 , and with the mask of 3 , we take the last three digits, and find the value of the resulting binary. In this case, it's 010 , which in decimal is 2 .

The operator you're looking for is the literal and operator::

>>> 5 > 4 and 6 > 5 
True

Or better (I believe you already know this):

>>> 6 > 5 > 4
True