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Re: "x ? y : z" notation

by Ish (Acolyte)
on Mar 26, 2009 at 00:45 UTC ( [id://753307]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to "x ? y : z" notation

From the ActiveState documentation of perlop
Conditional Operator Ternary "?:" is the conditional operator, just as in C. It works much +like an if-then-else. If the argument before the ? is true, the argum +ent before the : is returned, otherwise the argument after the : is r +eturned. For example: printf "I have %d dog%s.\n", $n, ($n == 1) ? '' : "s"; Scalar or list context propagates downward into the 2nd or 3rd argumen +t, whichever is selected. $a = $ok ? $b : $c; # get a scalar @a = $ok ? @b : @c; # get an array $a = $ok ? @b : @c; # oops, that's just a count! The operator may be assigned to if both the 2nd and 3rd arguments are +legal lvalues (meaning that you can assign to them): ($a_or_b ? $a : $b) = $c; Because this operator produces an assignable result, using assignments + without parentheses will get you in trouble. For example, this: $a % 2 ? $a += 10 : $a += 2 Really means this: (($a % 2) ? ($a += 10) : $a) += 2 Rather than this: ($a % 2) ? ($a += 10) : ($a += 2) That should probably be written more simply as: $a += ($a % 2) ? 10 : 2;
I find it very useful in some of the 'log' wrappers I have written.

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