Conditional Operator in C and C++

Conditional Operator is an operator which is substitutive for if-else statements. It is a ternary operator (operator which operates on 3 operands). It is often called ?: operator. The operands are expression1, expression2 and expression3. The syntax is as follows:

expression1 ? expression2 : expression3

The expression expression1  will be evaluated always. Execution of expression2 and expression3 depends on the outcome of expression1. expression1 is checked whether true or not. It is considered like a boolean variable. The outcome of an expression is true if it has a non zero value. If its value is zero, the outcome of expression is false. If the expression1 is true, then expression2 is evaluated. If the expression1 is false, then expression3 is evaluated. Consider the following example: