Introduction to Conditional Operators

An alternative to using if and else keywords in a conditional statement is to use the conditional operator, sometimes called the ternary operator (ternary means three; the conditional operator has three parts).

The conditional operator is an expression, meaning that it returns a value (unlike the more general if, which can only result in a statement or block being executed). The conditional operator is most useful for very short or simple conditionals.

Syntax

test ? trueresult : falseresult;

test is a boolean expression that returns true or false, just like the test in the if statement. If the test is true, the conditional operator returns the value of trueresult; if it's false, it returns the value of falseresult.

Example

1. /**
2.  * @(#)ConditionalOperatorDemo.java
3.  *
4.  *
5.  * @author
6.  * @version 1.00 2009/11/4
7.  */
8.
9.  public class ConditionalOperatorDemo {
10.        
11.    /**
12.     * Creates a new instance of ConditionalOperatorDemo.
13.     */
14.    public ConditionalOperatorDemo() {
15.    }
16.    
17.   /**
18.     * @param args the command line arguments
19.     */
20.    public static void main(String[] args) {
21.        // TODO code application logic here
22.        
23.        int a = 100;
24.        int b = 50;
25.        
26.        String result = a > b ? "a is greater than b" : "a is not greater than b";
27.        
28.        System.out.println(result);
29.    }
30. }

Output

a is greater than b