How to use the Ternary Operator in Java

Built in to Java is an operator called the ternary operator.

The ternary operator is essentially a condensed version of an if-else statement that is also capable of returning a value.

In this post, we'll learn how to use the ternary operator in Java.

How to use the ternary operator in Java

As mentioned before, the ternary operator is a conditional operator that is used to evaluate a boolean expression and return a value based on the result of the expression.

Let's first look at a traditional if-else statement:

JAVA
int number = 10;
String result = "";

if (number % 2 == 0) {
    result = "even";
} else {
    result = "odd";
}

System.out.println("The " + number + "number is " + result);

BASH
The number 10 is even

Now let's look at the same code using the ternary operator:

JAVA
int number = 10;
String result = number % 2 == 0 ? "even" : "odd";

System.out.println("The number " + number + " is " + result);

BASH
The number 10 is even

As you can see, the ternary operator is a lot more concise than the if-else statement.

Also, notice that the ternary operator returns a value, which is why we can assign the result of the ternary operator to a variable.

How to Nest Ternary Operators

Because ternary operators mimic if-else statements, they can also be nested, though not recommended:

JAVA
int number = 11;
String result = number % 2 == 0 ? "divisible by 2" : number % 3 == 0 ? "divisible by 3" : "divisible by neither 2 nor 3";

System.out.println("The number " + number + " is " + result);

BASH
The number 11 is divisible by neither 2 nor 3

It works, but it's not very readable, however you can improve readability by using parentheses:

JAVA
int number = 11;
String result = number % 2 == 0 ? "divisible by 2" : (number % 3 == 0 ? "divisible by 3" : "divisible by neither 2 nor 3");

System.out.println("The number " + number + " is " + result);

BASH
The number 11 is divisible by neither 2 nor 3

Conclusion

In this post, we learned how to use the ternary operator in Java.

The ternary operator is a great way to write concise code that can also return a value.

Thanks for reading!

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