Java™ How To Program (Early Objects), Tenth Edition

Conditional Operator (?:)

Java provides the conditional operator (?: ) that can be used in place of an if...else statement. This can make your code shorter and clearer. The conditional operator is Java’s only ternary operator (i.e., an operator that takes three operands). Together, the operands and the ?: symbol form a conditional expression. The first operand (to the left of the ?) is a boolean expression (i.e., a condition that evaluates to a boolean value—true or false), the second operand (between the ? and :) is the value of the conditional expression if the boolean expression is true and the third operand (to the right of the :) is the value of the conditional expression if the boolean expression evaluates to false. For example, the statement ...