Is there shorthand for returning a default value if None in Python?

You could use the or operator:

return x or default

Note that this also returns default if x is any falsy value, including an empty list, 0, empty string, or even datetime.time(0) (midnight).

return default if x is None else x

try the above.

x if x is not None else some_value

Example:

In [22]: x = None

In [23]: print x if x is not None else foo
foo

In [24]: x = bar

In [25]: print x if x is not None else foo
bar