What is Ternary Operator in JAVA

Java ternary operator is the only conditional operator that takes three operands. It is a conditional operator that provides a shorter syntax for the if..else statement. They compile into the equivalent if-else statement, meaning they will be exactly the same.

 
condition ? trueStatement : falseStatement

Condition : First part is the condition section.
trueStatement : Second is the code block which executes in case of first part condition goes true.
falseStatement : The Third part code block executes if condition results as false.

A ternary operator uses ? and : symbols. The first operand is a boolean expression; if the expression is true then the value of the second operand is returned otherwise the value of the third operand is returned. The value of a variable often depends on whether a particular Boolean expression is or is not true.

The following Java program evaluate a condition using if..else statement.

 
int x = 20, y = 10;
if (x>y)
  System.out.println("x is greater than y");
else
  System.out.println("x is less than or equal to y");

The same, we can do with ternary operator in java

 
int x = 20, y = 10;
String result = x > y ? "x is greater than y" : "x is less than or equal to y";

Full Source

 
public class TestClass {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    int x = 20, y = 10;
    String result = x > y ? "x is greater than y" : "x is less than or equal to y";
    System.out.println(result);
  }
}

Output:

x is greater than y

Nested Ternary Operator

You can use Ternary Operator in nested statement like in if..else condition.

Nested if else example

 
public class TestClass {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    int x=10;
    int y=20;
    int z=30;
    if( x > y ) {
      if ( x > z ){
        System.out.println("x is greatest") ;
      }
      else{
        System.out.println("z is greatest") ;
      }
    }
    else{
      if ( y > z ){
        System.out.println("y is greatest") ;
      }
      else{
        System.out.println("z is greatest") ;
      }
    }
  }
}

Output

z is greatest

Nested Nested Ternary Operator Example

 
public class TestClass {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    int x=10;
    int y=20;
    int z=30;
    String result = x > y ? x > z ? "x is greatest" : "z is greatest" : y > z ? "y is greatest" : "z is greatest";
    System.out.println(result) ;
  }
}

Output

z is greatest

Next : What is instanceof keyword in Java?