Coding Tip: Use The Ternary Conditional Operator

The ternary conditional operator (?:) can be used as a short-hand version of an if statement. It is a feature of many languages.

For example, this code:

int height;
if(isTall)
    height = 50;
else
    height = 10;

can be better written as:

int height = isTall ? 50 : 10;

The ?: operator is good for replacing very simple if statements, but is bad for complicated if statements as it can harm readability.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 at 6:01 am and is filed under Coding Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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