python - Is there a difference between "== False" and "is not" when checking for an empty string?

Question

I have read elsewhere on stackoverflow that the most elegant way to check for an empty string in Python (e.g. let's say it's a string called response) is to do:

if not response:
    # do some stuff 

The reason being that strings can evaluate to boolean objects.

So my question is, does the below code say the same thing?

if response == False:
    # do some stuff

Answer 1

Is there a difference? Yes: one works, and the other doesn't.

if response == False is only true if the actual value of response is False. For an empty string, that is not the case.

if not response, on the other hand, verifies if response is falsey; that is, it is one of the values that Python accepts as false in a boolean context, which includes None, False, the empty string, the empty list, and so on. It is equivalent to if bool(response) == False.