what does ? character mean?

[rupurt]

hi sorry to ask such a basic question but what does the ? character do in c?

[Thantos]

It is one part of the trinary operator.

Just like in the english language ? denotes a question.

syntax is: condition ? true : false

So basically its: is condition true? If true do the true statement, if not do the false statement

[ronin]

It is a handy operator that is not limited to output. An example in code

int items = 1;

printf("you have %d %s remaining.", items, items > 1 ? "items" : "item");

It's late for me, but the output *should* read: you have 1 item remaining.

[pinko_liberal]

They are also a part of trigraphs, some special sequences of three characters (most probably you won't ever need to use trigraphs)
http://www.opus1.com/vmsdoc/progtool...igraph_seq_tab