The "?:", or Ternary operator in PHP, Java, Perl, C and possibly other languages is essentially shorthand for a block of code like

if ($a==1) {

print "A is 1!";

} else {

print "A is not 1!";

}

Using the ternary operator, it becomes

print ($a==1) ? "A is 1!" : "A is not 1!";

Cool, huh?

Or, in java

public class !CondOpTest {

public static void main(String[] args) {

new !CondOpTest(new Integer(args[0));

}

public !CondOpTest(Integer a) {

if (a.intValue()==1) {

System.out.println("A is 1!");

} else {

System.out.println("A is not 1!");

}

}

}

becomes

public class !CondOpTest {

public static void main(String[] args) {

new !CondOpTest(new Integer(args[0));

}

public !CondOpTest(Integer a) {

System.out.println((a.intValue()==1 ) ? "A is 1!" : "A is not 1!");

}

}

In Perl, however, things are slightly different.

This piece of code is valid, and is similar to the examples above

print ( ($a==1) ? "A is 1!" : "A is not 1!" );

However the following code is also valid

($a==1) ? print "A is 1!" : print "A is not 1!";

The above also works in C

int a = 0; (a == 1) ? printf("A is 1!\n") : printf("A is not 1!\n");