Re: Ternary operator

Tom,

good question, and we could also ask why people insist on developing new
programming languages/environments versus improving what we already
have...  Frankly, I've yet to see anything done in a current language that
couldn't have been incorporated in good ole PL/I.....  :) :)

Oh well........

Don in DC
Home of the JAM 2004 Tech conference - www.wash-midrange.org/jam.html

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On Wed, 7 Jul 2004, Tom Jedrzejewicz wrote:

> I have seen this operator construction in several languages, although
> my memory fails me.  Why is this better than using a standard if
> statement?
>
> if (val1 > val2)
>   then maxval = val1;
>   else maxval = val2;  {I am sure my syntax was wrong ;->}
>
> It is certainly more obscure, and harder to figure out if you haven't
> seen it before.  And heaven help the reader if the spaces are removed.
>      maxval=(val1>val2)?val1:val2;
>
>
> > Joe Pluta wrote:
> > > ...
> > > I know that at one point the RPG compiler folks floated the possibility
> > > of a ternary operator (in Java, it's the "?", as in:
> > >
> > >    maxval = (val1 > val2) ? val1 : val2;
> > >
> > > In this, the condition to the left of the "?" is tested, and if true,
> > > the value to the left of the ":" is used, otherwise the value to the
> > > right is used.
> > >
> > > Did this show up in V5R3?
>
> --
> Tom Jedrzejewicz
> tomjedrz@xxxxxxxxx
> --
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