What is the Java ?: operator called and what does it do?

Question

I have been working with Java a couple of years, but up until recently I haven\'t run across this construct:

int count = isHere ? getHereCount(index) : getAw         


        

Answer 1

Not exactly correct, to be precise:

1. if isHere is true, the result of getHereCount() is returned
2. otheriwse the result of getAwayCount() is returned

That "returned" is very important. It means the methods must return a value and that value must be assigned somewhere.

Also, it's not exactly syntactically equivalent to the if-else version. For example:

String str1,str2,str3,str4;
boolean check;
//...
return str1 + (check ? str2 : str3) + str4;

If coded with if-else will always result in more bytecode.