Skip to content

Ternary operator

The ternary operator ? : is a shorthand for an if‑else statement that returns a value.

Syntax:

condition ? expressionIfTrue : expressionIfFalse

Examples:

int age = 20;
String status = (age >= 18) ? "Adult" : "Minor";
System.out.println(status); // Adult
int max = (a > b) ? a : b; // assign the larger value
System.out.println((score >= 60) ? "Pass" : "Fail");

Nested ternary (use sparingly for readability):

String grade = (score >= 90) ? "A" :
(score >= 80) ? "B" :
(score >= 70) ? "C" : "F";

Important: Both expressions must be compatible types (or one must be assignable to the other). The result is the common type.

// int and double: result is double
double result = (x > 0) ? 10 : 2.5;