How Does the C Ternary Operator Work?

Understanding the Conditional (Ternary) Operator in C

The conditional operator, or ternary operator as it's more commonly known, offers a concise alternative to if-else statements in C . It allows you to write conditional assignments using the syntax:

(condition) ? true-clause : false-clause

Mechanics of the Conditional Operator:

• The condition is a boolean expression that evaluates to either true or false.
• true-clause is the value assigned if the condition evaluates to true.
• false-clause is the value assigned if the condition evaluates to false.

Usage:

The ternary operator is most commonly employed in assignment operations. For example, this code snippet assigns the value 3 to the variable x if Three is true, and 0 if Three is false:

bool Three = SOME_VALUE;
int x = Three ? 3 : 0;

Equivalent if-else Statement:

The ternary operator is effectively a shortcut for the following if-else statement:

bool Three = SOME_VALUE;
int x;
if (Three)
    x = 3;
else
    x = 0;

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