As other Monks have suggested, the conditional operator does what you want. They have also pointed out that it can become difficult to read. However, if you set your code out carefully, the conditional operator can produce elegant and easy to read code. Consider:

my $n = 3;

my $s = $n == 1 ? 'one'
      : $n == 2 ? 'two'
      : $n == 3 ? 'three'
      : $n == 4 ? 'four'
      :           'ETOOBIG';

print "$n : $s\n"; # 3 : three

[download]

But, in some circumstances, you may be able to use a hash table:

my %h = ( 1 => 'one', 2 => 'two', 3 => 'three', 4 => 'four' );

 $s = $h{$n} // 'ETOOBIG'; # needs perl 5.10
#$s = $h{$n} || 'ETOOBIG'; # works for any perl
print "$n : $s\n"

[download]

See perlop for the difference between the or (||) and defined or (//) operators

Unless I state otherwise, all my code runs with strict and warnings

In reply to Re: in search of a more elegant if then else by FunkyMonk
in thread in search of a more elegant if then else by Anonymous Monk

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