37 Ternary Operators in C++

The ternary operator is essentially a ? and a :, which is just syntactic sugar for an if statement.

1. General Usage

if (s_Level > 5)
    s_Speed = 10;
else
    s_Speed = 5;

is equivalent to

s_Speed = s_Level > 5 ? 10 : 5;

Similarly,

std::string rank = s_Level > 10 ? "Master" : "Beginner";

/* ------------------------  */ 

std::string otherRank;
if (s_Level > 10)
    otherRank = "Master";
else
    otherRank = "Beginner";

The code here is different from the above, and technically, it is slower because you create a temporary string and then immediately destroy it. The reason why the ternary operator here does not construct an intermediate string is actually related to return value optimization (an advanced compiler feature, which is an optimization technique), which will be discussed later.

For now, just know that writing code this way is cleaner, and in my opinion, it will also be faster.

2. Nesting

s_Speed = s_Level > 5 ? s_Level > 10 ? 15 : 10 : 5;  // Nested ternary operator

If greater than 5, and also greater than 10, set to 15, otherwise set to 10, and if not greater than 5, set to 5.

s_Speed = s_Level > 5 && s_Level < 100 ? s_Level > 10 ? 15 : 10 : 5;

This is getting increasingly crazy, don't overthink it, it doesn't make much sense, try not to write it this way.