The conditional operator (?
is a ternary operator (it takes three operands). The conditional operator works as follows:
* The first operand is implicitly converted to bool. It is evaluated and all side effects are completed before continuing.
* If the first operand evaluates to true (1), the second operand is evaluated.
* If the first operand evaluates to false (0), the third operand is evaluated.
The result of the conditional operator is the result of whichever operand is evaluated — the second or the third. Only one of the last two operands is evaluated in a conditional expression.
Conditional expressions have right-to-left associativity. The first operand must be of integral or pointer type. The following rules apply to the second and third expressions:
* If both expressions are of the same type, the result is of that type.
* If both expressions are of arithmetic or enumeration types, the usual arithmetic conversions (covered in Arithmetic Conversions) are performed to convert them to a common type.
* If both expressions are of pointer types or if one is a pointer type and the other is a constant expression that evaluates to 0, pointer conversions are performed to convert them to a common type.
* If both expressions are of reference types, reference conversions are performed to convert them to a common type.
* If both expressions are of type void, the common type is type void.
* If both expressions are of a given class type, the common type is that class type.