title: How can I simplify this conversion from underscore to camelcase in Python?
body: <p>I have written the function below that converts underscore to camelcase with first word in lowercase, i.e. "get_this_value" -> "getThisValue". Also I have requirement to preserve leading and trailing underscores and also double (triple etc.) underscores, if any, i.e.</p>
  
  <pre><code>"_get__this_value_" -&gt; "_get_ThisValue_".
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>def underscore_to_camelcase(value):
      output = ""
      first_word_passed = False
      for word in value.split("_"):
          if not word:
              output += "_"
              continue
          if first_word_passed:
              output += word.capitalize()
          else:
              output += word.lower()
          first_word_passed = True
      return output
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I am feeling the code above as written in non-Pythonic style, though it works as expected, so looking how to simplify the code and write it using list comprehensions etc.</p>