Why in conditional operator (?:), second and third operands must have the same type?

Question

Why in conditional operator(?:), second and third operands must have the same type?

My code like this:

#include 

        

Answer 1

It's a strong type language and it need to treat the whole ?: as a variable or statement, like:

int i = 3;
int j = 5;
int k = (2 > 1 ? i : j) + 3;

in such a case, what would you expect it should do for you if i is a string?