For a less esoteric example:

$apples=3;
$oranges=1;
print "I have $apples ", $apples==1?"apple":"apples", "\n";
print "I have $oranges orange", $oranges==1?"":"s", "\n";
__END__
I have 3 apples
I have 1 orange
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--
Tommy
Too stupid to live.
Too stubborn to die.

Out of all the examples here, your's was definately the most understandable :) Thanks for trying to keep it basic and using something which would be a pretty practical use of it! I think I understand it more, thanks for your help!!

sulfericacid

my $foo = "test";
print +( $foo =~ /^\w+\z/ ? "condition true" : "condition false" ),$/;

my $bar = defined $x ? $x : "nought";
print "\$bar is: $bar", $/;

__output__

condition true
$bar is: nought
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_________
broquaint

I wouldn't say "execute", but rather "return". Why? Because it can also return lvalues. In ALGOL, one could do:

    IF a THEN b ELSE c FI := IF d THEN e ELSE f FI;
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which was great. You can do something like that in Perl using the ternary operator:

   ($a ? $b : $c) = ($d ? $e : $f);
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You can't do that in C or Java without use much more code.

Abigail

I wouldn't say "execute", but rather "return".

So would I ;)

It's essentially like a returning inline if statement.

_________
broquaint

The ternary ?: is a short if-then-else:

A ? B : C

# is equivalent to
if ( A ) { B } else { C }
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The advantage is that it's an expression, in contrast to if-else, which is a control structure. So.

print A ? B : C;  #correct

# equivalent if-else?
print if(A){ B }else{ C }; #nope

# does the same, but doesn't mean the same:
if( A ){ print B }
else   { print C }
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HTH. See perlop for further enlightment.

Isn't it time you got yourself a better book?