AND operator while assignment

Question

What does this means :

>>> a = 12 and 13
>>> a
13

How does and operator works while assigning values or is just that it takes the last value ?

Answer 1

If the expression on the left of and is false, it will be returned. Otherwise, and returns the value on the right:

0 and 13
Out[3]: 0

12 and 13
Out[4]: 13

You should think about how this works- check all the combinations of True/False on the left and right, and you'll see that having and work this way means the value it returns always reflects the True/False status of both expressions.

Answer 2

short-circuit evaluation The opposite:

>>> a = 12 or 13
>>> a
12