How to force a lambda function to return an object rather than the None value of the last method on the object?

Sometimes I cannot use a lambda function on an object because the last method applied to the object returns None. What is the trick to be able to return the object itself instead of the method returned value?

Example, I want to get the updated copy of the dictionary instead of None:

dict_update = lambda d, upd: d.copy().update(upd)

d = dict(lw=3, ls='-')
upd = dict(c='C0', lw=4)
d1 = dict_update(d, upd)
for v in [d, upd, d1]: print(v)

{'lw': 3, 'ls': '-'}
{'c': 'C0', 'lw': 4}
None

>Solution :

You could use dict unpacking and packing:

dict_update = lambda d, upd: {**d, **upd}