freeCodeCamp/guide/english/cplusplus/conditional-operator/index.md

---
title: Conditional Operator
---

## Conditional Operator

Conditional operator is a ternary operator, that is it needs 3 operands.
It returns one of two values depending on the result of an expression
Conditional operator is used to replace a simple if-else statements.

Syntax :
```cpp
  (condition)?(expression-1):(expression-2);
```
Here, expression-1 is evaluated when condition is true and expression-2 is evaluated when condtion is false.
Similar if-else statement would be :
```cpp
if(condition)
  {
    expression-1;
  }
else
  {
    expression-2;
  }
```

The above code however can be used to check more than just two conditions in the following way/syntax:
```cpp
if(condition 1)    /* Checks first condition, skips else-if and else
  {                   entirely if condition 1 checks out */          
    expression-1;
  }
else if(condition 2) /*Checks condition 2, only and only if condition 1
  {                    is false, if condition 2 is true the comiler will 
    expression-2;      skip the 'else' part and move on */
  }

else                /*Once if and else-if conditions don't satisfy the  
  {                   compiler will run the expression in else{..}   
    expression-3;     because it does not have a condition to check, 
  }                   part of code can also be skipped if not necessary*/  
```

Hence conditional operator is very handy when you need to write simple if-else statement. It can also be used in #define 
preprocessor when similar condition is to be used in multiple places.

For example, to find maximum of two number conditional operator can be used as follows :

```cpp
#define big(a,b) (a>=b)?a:b

int maximum,x=5,y=6; // variable to store maximum of two numbers
maximum=(x>y)?x:y; // directly using conditional operator
maximum=big(x,y); // using the #define preprocessor defined above as big
```
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