C Basics - Conditional Operators in C

The conditional operators ? and : are sometimes called ternary operators since they take three arguments.

Their general form is,

expression 1 ? expression 2 : expression 3

if expression 1 is true (that is, if its value is non-zero), then the value returned will be expression 2, otherwise the value returned will be expression 3

#include <stdio.h>

int main() 
{
   int x, y ; 
   scanf ( "Enter a number: %d", &x ); 
   y = ( x > 5 ? 3 : 4 );
   printf("Value of y is %d\n", y ); 

   return 0;
}

This statement will store 3 in y if x is greater than 5, otherwise it will store 4 in y.

The limitation of the conditional operators is that after the ? or after the : only one C statement can occur. In practice rarely is this the requirement.

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Related topics:
Overview of Operators in C   |   Arithmetic Operators in C   |   Relational Operators in C   |   Logical Operators in C   |   Bitwise Operators in C   |   Compound Assignment Operators in C   |   Miscellaneous Operators in C   |   Operator Precedence and Associativity in C

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List of topics: C Programming

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