In c# what does mean "< ? :"?

Question

In c# what does mean < ? : in this string?

return (a < b ? c: "text") + " ";

Answer 1

It is a ternary operator.

condition ? truePart : falsePart

It means if a is less then b then return c else return "text". Both values will have " " appended before returning...

Oh, but please don't use the variable names a, b and c in your own code :)

Answer 2

The ? : is the conditional operator. If the first argument is true, it evaluates and returns the second argument, otherwise it evaluates and returns the third argument.

Your code is roughly equivalent to this:

if (a < b)
{
    return c + " ";
}
else
{
    return "text" + " ";
}

Answer 3

Here a is being compared with b and is evaluated as a boolean,

So if a < b is true then c is returned

in case it evaluates to false then text is returned.

In either case you have a single space returned additionally in the end

Read more on Conditional Operators and also Relational Operators

Answer 4

if a is less than(<) b then(?) return c otherwise(:) return "text"

Basically there is no < ? : operator, you're seeing two separate operators, '<' and the '?:' operator, which is ternary and therefore takes three inputs (in this order):

1) An expression that is a boolean (in this case the < comparison)

2) What to return when 1) is true

3) What to return when 1) is false

Answer 5

that means that if a is less than b then return c, otherwise return "text" and then add " " to the end in both cases.

MSDN doc here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ty67wk28(v=VS.100).aspx

Answer 6

it is a ternary operator which basically is a short form of "if-then-else"... the above would be:

if (a < b)
{
   return c + " ";
}
else
{
   return "text ";
}

For reference see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ty67wk28%28v=VS.100%29.aspx

Answer 7

It's the conditional operator.

Same as this:

if (a < b)
   return "c" + " ";
else 
   return "text" + " ";

Answer 8

It is basically a short way of writing if else condition

if a is less then b
    then return c + " ";
otherwise 
    return "text" + " ";

Answer 9

It's a if statement, using tenary operator. You can read more about it at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ty67wk28(v=vs.80).aspx

Answer 10

Its a conditional operator:

condition ? first_expression : second_expression;

In your case condition is a < b and so this translates to

string retVal;
if (a < b)
{
    retVal = c;
}
else
{
    retVal = "text";
}

return retVal + " ";

Answer 11

It is called a ternary operator^docs. It is short for

var str = "";
if( a < b)
  str = c;
else
  str = "text"
str += " ";
return str;

Answer 12

This is a Ternary operation (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_operation ). Basically, the expression on the left is evaluated. If it evaluates to true, the result is the expression to the left of the :. If it is false, it is the one after.

In your example, if a is less than b, the result is c, otherwise text.

Answer 13

The < operator checks if the left operand is smaller than the right operand.

The ? (Also called the ternary operator) yields, in this case, c if a < b and text otherwise.

Answer 14

if a is greater than b return c + " " else return "text" + " "

Answer 15

This is called a conditional operator, which is a type of ternary operator - as it takes 3 variables.
It is equivalent to

if(a < b)
{ 
   return c + " ";
}
else 
{
   return "text" + " ";
}