A Programmer[ap]s Guide to Java Certification

3.15 The Conditional Operator: ?

The ternary conditional operator allows conditional expressions to be defined. The operator has the following syntax:

<condition>   ?   <expression ₁ >   :   <expression ₂ >

If the boolean expression <condition> is true then <expression ₁ > is evaluated; otherwise , <expression ₂ > is evaluated. Of course, <expression ₁ > and <expression ₂ > must evaluate to values of compatible types. The value of the expression evaluated is returned by the conditional expression.

boolean leapYear = false; int daysInFebruary = leapYear ? 29 : 28; // 28

The conditional operator is the expression equivalent of the if-else statement. The conditional expression can be nested and the conditional operator associates from right to left:

(a?b?c?d:e:f:g)   evaluates  as   (a?(b?(c?d:e):f):g)