THINK++ — Engineering Visualized

Conditional Expression

Ternary Operator

The ternary operator ? : is a shorthand for if-else. It evaluates a condition and returns one of two values.

SYNTAX

condition?if_true:if_false

Basic usage

int max = (a > b) ? a : b;

In output

cout << (score >= 60 ? "Pass" : "Fail");

Nested ternary

int r = (a>b) ? (a>c?a:c) : (b>c?b:c);

Assignment

string s = (n%2==0) ? "even" : "odd";

READABILITY NOTE

Avoid deeply nested ternary expressions. If the logic is complex, prefer a regular if-else block for clarity.

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