Re: use of "?" operator instead of "if"

[Rob Dixon]

Bob Showalter wrote:
> Ravi Malghan wrote:
> > Hi: I have this statement which checks for existence
> > of the $VAL variable and performs certain actions
> >
> > if($VAL){
> >   $VAL = "$VAL:$expr"; }
> > else {
> >   $VAL = "$expr"; }
> >
> > Can this 4 line statement be reduced to a single line using "?"
> > operator?
>
> $VAL = $VAL ? "$VAL:$expr" : $expr;

At last! Thanks Bob, this /is/ how to use the conditional operator,
while

    $VAL ? ( $VAL = "$VAL:$expr" ) : ( $VAL = $expr )

/isn't/. ?: is an /operator/. It happens to have three operands
instead of the usual two or 1, but it is meant for deriving a
new value from three others, like a function.

    sub conditional {
        my ($test, $val1, $val2);
        return $val1 if $test;
        return $val2;
    }

    $VAL = conditional ($VAL, "$VAL:$expr", $expr)

Rob




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