Javascript difference between || and ?:

Question

As I understand from Javascript || operator,
|| will return whichever operand is true, and
?: will return the 1st operand if the condition before ? evaluates to true, the 2nd otherwise.

But can || be considered as a ternary operator itself or not? Explain.

"Ternary operator" refers to having three operands. Does `||` have three operands? Nope. — Niet the Dark Absol, Aug 05 '14 at 14:27

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 05 '14 at 14:28

4

The || operator can be seen as a special case of the ?: operator . The following snippets are identical:

var c = a || b;

var c = a ? a : b;

answered Aug 05 '14 at 14:28

p.s.w.g

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of course with a bit of terrible hackery by using accessors that change their own state they could be made to produce different results, but that's certainly an edge case. – zzzzBov Aug 05 '14 at 14:30

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 23 '17 at 08:36

1

The || operator is binary because it has only two operands: condition1 || condition2.

?: is ternary because it has three operands: condition ? value_if_true : value_if_false.

edited Jun 23 '17 at 08:36

halfer

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answered Aug 05 '14 at 14:31

Tugdual

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didn't quite realize that at the time of posting, thanks. – Julien Lachal Aug 05 '14 at 14:43

Javascript difference between || and ?:

2 Answers2