Identity Operator — Operators in Python — Python Tutorial

Identity Operators

Use the Identity operator to check whether the value of two variables is the same or not. This operator is known as a reference-quality operator because the identity operator compares the values in the memory addresses of two variables. There are two identity operators.

is : The is operator returns boolean values either True or False. It returns True if the memory address's first value is equal to the second value. Otherwise, it returns False.
is not : The is not operator returns boolean values either True or False. It returns True if the first value is not equal to the second value. Otherwise, it returns False.

Operator	Description	Example	Result	Condition
`is`	Is	`a is b`	`True` / `False`	`True` if both point to same object in memory
`is not`	Is not	`a is not b`	`True` / `False`	`True` if they are different objects in memory

Example:

x = 10
y = 11
z = 10
 
print(x is y)      # it compare memory address of x and y
print(x is z)      # it compare memory address of x and z
print(x is not y)  # it compare memory address of x and y
print(x is not z)  # it compare memory address of x and z

Output:

False
True
True
False