Thread: ternary operation as confusing as quadruple bypass

Originally Posted by forestprimeval

I thought the ternary operator evaluated the second and third operands as expressions, which function calls are not...right?

A function call is also an expression.

Originally Posted by forestprimeval

Also, why don't these calls need semi-colons; does that semicolon in the end in fact get pasted onto the end of the expression?

The semi-colon at the end marks the end of the statement.

Originally Posted by forestprimeval

I also think it's cool that

Code:

printf("foo"),printf("foo2");

works. Why don't textbooks mention this? Or is it particular to my compiler?

That is the use of the comma operator. While it may look "cool", overuse can make your code harder to read.

You think that's freaky? Check out this:

Code:

int foo(int x, int y) {return x * 2 + y;}
int bar(int x, int y) {return y * 3 + x;}

int main(void)
{
    int a = 4, b = 5;
    int flag = 1;
    int result = (flag ? foo : bar)(a, b);
}

Don't worry, you wont be the only one who didn't know you could do that!

You can put all sorts of stuff within the ternary operator's true and false conditions. void is an expression type too.