-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 6.1k
Revised the conditional operator article #9125
New issue
Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.
By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.
Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account
Changes from all commits
File filter
Filter by extension
Conversations
Jump to
Diff view
Diff view
There are no files selected for viewing
| Original file line number | Diff line number | Diff line change |
|---|---|---|
| @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ | ||
| --- | ||
| title: "?: Operator (C# Reference)" | ||
| ms.date: "07/20/2015" | ||
| ms.date: "11/20/2018" | ||
| f1_keywords: | ||
| - "?:_CSharpKeyword" | ||
| - "?_CSharpKeyword" | ||
|
|
@@ -10,70 +10,76 @@ helpviewer_keywords: | |
| - "conditional operator (?:) [C#]" | ||
| ms.assetid: e83a17f1-7500-48ba-8bee-2fbc4c847af4 | ||
| --- | ||
|
|
||
| # ?: Operator (C# Reference) | ||
|
|
||
| The conditional operator (`?:`), commonly known as the ternary conditional operator, returns one of two values depending on the value of a Boolean expression. Following is the syntax for the conditional operator. | ||
| The conditional operator `?:`, commonly known as the ternary conditional operator, evaluates a Boolean expression, and returns the result of evaluating one of two expressions, depending on whether the Boolean expression evaluates to `true` or `false`. Beginning with C# 7.2, the [conditional ref expression](#conditional-ref-expression) returns the reference to the result of one of the two expressions. | ||
|
|
||
| The syntax for the conditional operator is as follows: | ||
|
|
||
| ```csharp | ||
| condition ? first_expression : second_expression; | ||
| condition ? consequence : alternative | ||
| ``` | ||
|
|
||
| Beginning with C# 7.2, the `first_expression` and `second_expression` my be [`ref` expressions](https://github.com/dotnet/csharplang/blob/master/proposals/csharp-7.2/conditional-ref.md): | ||
| The `condition` expression must evaluate to `true` or `false`. If `condition` evaluates to `true`, the `consequence` expression is evaluated, and its result becomes the result of the operation. If `condition` evaluates to `false`, the `alternative` expression is evaluated, and its result becomes the result of the operation. Only `consequence` or `alternative` is evaluated. | ||
|
|
||
| ```csharp | ||
| ref condition ? ref first_expression : ref second_expression; | ||
| ``` | ||
| The type of `consequence` and `alternative` must be the same, or there must be an implicit conversion from one type to the other. | ||
|
|
||
| The result may be assigned to a `ref` or `ref readonly` variable, or to a variable with neither modifier. | ||
| The conditional operator is right-associative, that is, an expression of the form | ||
|
|
||
| ## Remarks | ||
| ```csharp | ||
| a ? b : c ? d : e | ||
| ``` | ||
|
|
||
| The `condition` must evaluate to `true` or `false`. If `condition` is `true`, `first_expression` is evaluated and becomes the result. If `condition` is `false`, `second_expression` is evaluated and becomes the result. Only one of the two expressions is evaluated. This is particularly important for expressions where the result is a `ref`, as the following is valid: | ||
| is evaluated as | ||
|
|
||
| ```csharp | ||
| ref (storage != null) ? ref storage[3] : ref defaultValue; | ||
| a ? b : (c ? d : e) | ||
| ``` | ||
|
|
||
| The reference to `storage` is not evaluated when `storage` is null. | ||
| The following example demonstrates the usage of the conditional operator: | ||
|
|
||
| [!code-csharp[non ref condtional](~/samples/snippets/csharp/language-reference/operators/ConditionalExamples.cs#ConditionalValue)] | ||
|
|
||
| When the result is a value, the type of `first_expression` and `second_expression` must be the same, or there must be an implicit conversion from one type to the other. When the result is a `ref`, the type of `first_expression` and `second_expression` must be the same. | ||
| ## Conditional ref expression | ||
|
|
||
| You can express calculations that might otherwise require an `if-else` construction more concisely by using the conditional operator. For example, the following code uses first an `if` statement and then a conditional operator to classify an integer as positive or negative. | ||
| Beginning with C# 7.2, you can use the conditional ref expression to return the reference to the result of one of the two expressions. You can assign that reference to a [local ref](../keywords/ref.md#ref-locals) or [local ref readonly](../keywords/ref.md#ref-readonly-locals) variable, or use it as a [reference return value](../keywords/ref.md#reference-return-values) or as a [`ref` method parameter](../keywords/ref.md#passing-an-argument-by-reference). | ||
|
|
||
| The syntax for the conditional ref expression is as follows: | ||
|
|
||
| ```csharp | ||
| int input = Convert.ToInt32(Console.ReadLine()); | ||
| string classify; | ||
|
|
||
| // if-else construction. | ||
| if (input > 0) | ||
| classify = "positive"; | ||
| else | ||
| classify = "negative"; | ||
|
|
||
| // ?: conditional operator. | ||
| classify = (input > 0) ? "positive" : "negative"; | ||
| condition ? ref consequence : ref alternative | ||
| ``` | ||
|
|
||
| The conditional operator is right-associative. The expression `a ? b : c ? d : e` is evaluated as `a ? b : (c ? d : e)`, not as `(a ? b : c) ? d : e`. | ||
|
|
||
| The conditional operator cannot be overloaded. | ||
|
|
||
| ## Example | ||
| Like the original conditional operator, the conditional ref expression evaluates only one of the two expressions: either `consequence` or `alternative`. | ||
|
|
||
| The following example shows the conditional operator whose result is a value: | ||
| In the case of the conditional ref expression, the type of `consequence` and `alternative` must be the same. | ||
|
|
||
| [!code-csharp[csRefOperators?:](~/samples/snippets/csharp/language-reference/operators/ConditionalExamples.cs#ConditionalValue)] | ||
| The following example demonstrates the usage of the conditional ref expression: | ||
|
|
||
| [!code-csharp[conditional ref](~/samples/snippets/csharp/language-reference/operators/ConditionalExamples.cs#ConditionalRef)] | ||
|
|
||
| For more information, see the [feature proposal note](https://github.com/dotnet/csharplang/blob/master/proposals/csharp-7.2/conditional-ref.md). | ||
|
|
||
| ## Conditional operator and an `if..else` statement | ||
|
|
||
| Use of the conditional operator over an [if-else](../keywords/if-else.md) statement might result in more concise code in cases when you need conditionally to compute a value. The following example demonstrates two ways to classify an integer as negative or nonnegative: | ||
|
|
||
| [!code-csharp[conditional and if-else](~/samples/snippets/csharp/language-reference/operators/ConditionalExamples.cs#CompareWithIf)] | ||
|
There was a problem hiding this comment. Choose a reason for hiding this commentThe reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more. There was a problem hiding this comment. Choose a reason for hiding this commentThe reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more. @rpetrusha I also didn't notice any warnings even before the samples PR was merged. Does it build properly after merging the samples PR? There was a problem hiding this comment. Choose a reason for hiding this commentThe reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more. The latest build shows no warnings, and the code appears as expected, @pkulikov |
||
|
|
||
| ## Operator overloadability | ||
|
|
||
| The conditional operator cannot be overloaded. | ||
|
|
||
| The following alternative shows the conditional operator where the result is a reference: | ||
| ## C# language specification | ||
|
|
||
| [!code-csharp[csRefOperatorsRef?:](~/samples/snippets/csharp/language-reference/operators/ConditionalExamples.cs#ConditionalRef)] | ||
| For more information, see the [Conditional operator](~/_csharplang/spec/expressions.md#conditional-operator) section of the [C# language specification](../language-specification/index.md). | ||
|
|
||
| ## See Also | ||
| ## See also | ||
|
|
||
| - [C# Reference](../../../csharp/language-reference/index.md) | ||
| - [C# Programming Guide](../../../csharp/programming-guide/index.md) | ||
| - [C# Operators](../../../csharp/language-reference/operators/index.md) | ||
| - [if-else](../../../csharp/language-reference/keywords/if-else.md) | ||
| - [?. and ?[] Operators](../../../csharp/language-reference/operators/null-conditional-operators.md) | ||
| - [?? Operator](../../../csharp/language-reference/operators/null-coalescing-operator.md) | ||
| - [C# Reference](../index.md) | ||
| - [C# Programming Guide](../../programming-guide/index.md) | ||
| - [C# Operators](index.md) | ||
| - [if-else statement](../keywords/if-else.md) | ||
| - [?. and ?[] Operators](null-conditional-operators.md) | ||
| - [?? Operator](null-coalescing-operator.md) | ||
| - [ref keyword](../keywords/ref.md) | ||

Uh oh!
There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.