Should the ? Operator Be Used More Often?

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To ternary or not to ternary?

Today, while reading through my C book I stumbled upon a little gem: the ? operator. It is a ternary operator that acts like an if else statement based on weather or not a statement is true or false.

Apparently using the ? operator is supposed to be more efficient.

The following code uses an if / else statement (assuming somefunc returns NULL on failure):

foo = somefunc();
if(foo) printf("\nFunction Suceeded!");
else printf("\nFunction Failed!");

This is code is the same as the first but uses the ? operator:

somefunc() ? printf("\nFunction Suceeded!") : printf("\nFunction Failed!");

I can see how this will not be useful most of the time, however I know I've seen countless instances where this could have been easily used in place of an if / else statement.

Is it good practice to use this method?

Its more about readability, the use of the ternary operator can less to difficult to understand code, especially if you use a nested one. — Neil, Aug 25 '12 at 22:44
`printf(somefunc() ? "\nFunction Suceeded!" : "\nFunction Failed!");` — Vlad, Aug 25 '12 at 22:47

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 25 '12 at 22:45

3

Efficiency aside, you should use whichever is more readable.

Efficiency included, if the ? were really more efficient, the compiler would definitely automatically rewrite any if statements to ? expressions. Why wouldn't it?

answered Aug 25 '12 at 22:45

Joachim Isaksson

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 25 '12 at 22:45

1

Use the ternary operator sparingly. It's definitely useful and can be an appropriate abbreviation, but it also can lead to less readable code. Your example demonstrates this.

answered Aug 25 '12 at 22:45

pb2q

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Should the ? Operator Be Used More Often?

2 Answers2