C Conditional or Ternary Operator

The conditional operator is kind of similar to the if - statement as it does follow the same algorithm as the if-else statement, but the conditional operator takes less space and helps to write the if-else statement in the shortest way possible.

It is also called Ternary Operator means it takes three operands.

In C language programming, having three types of operators.

1. Unary operator: which operates on a single value.

2. Binary operator: which operates on two values.

3. Ternary operators: which operators on three values.

So Ternary operator takes three operands and two operators. These operators are the question mark (?) and the colon (:). The first expression is placed before the question mark (?), the second expression is in between the? and: and the third one after the colon (:).

 The general format 

condition ? expression 1 : expression 2;

If the condition is true then the expression 1 will be executed and if the condition is false then the expression 2 will be executed.

Example: 

1. max_value = (a > b) ? a : b ;

2. sign = (number < 0 ) ? -1 : (( number ==0) ? 0 : 1);

How to use this syntax in the program?

// C program to find the square of positive numbers
#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
    int j, num;
    printf("Enter your number either positive or negative \n ");
    scanf("%d", &num);
    j = (num < 0 ? 0 : num * num);
    printf("\n The positive number's square is:%d ", j);
    return 0;
}

One more example 

//C program to determine the number is either negative, zero or positive 

#include <stdio.h>

int main()

{

    int sign, number;

printf("enter any number\n");

scanf("%d", &number);

sign = (number < 0) ? -1 : ((number == 0) ? 0 : 1);

printf("\n sign = %d", sign);

    return 0;

}

Observations: 

1. The conditional operator can be used in different statements (it is not used only in arithmetic statement )

ex. char a;

int y;

scanf ("% c", &a);

y = (a> = 65 &&a <= 90 ? 1 : 0 );

2. The conditional operator can be nested just like if-else-if statement. 

ex. int big, a, b, c ;

big = (a > b ? (a > c ? 3 : 4) : (b > c ? 6 : 8 ));

3. Even though it is a conditional operator we need semicolon (;) at the end.

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