case(true)
when 1>2
p 1
when 1<2
p 2
end
#= 2


Just tested Ruby’s (v1.8) case-when and works the same:

case(true)
when 1>2
p 1
when 1 2


const char *number =
i < 0 ? "negative" :
i == 0 ? "zero" :
i == 1 ? "one" :
i == 2 ? "two" :
"lots!" ;


It is also possible that some C++ compilers accept and some reject that pattern. So perhaps you really did write that code in the past.

I remember i posted the quote somewhere couldn’t get back to the website. CORRECTION IS IN ORDER: the sample code in my previous comment is not valid c++ contrary to my beliefs before. I was pretty sure I had used that somewhere before but obviously not as i tried using the syntax above again and well the compiler denied me a twinkie. Igor, I would appreciate it if you could delete my comment and spare some sane people from some misleading remarks and conjured up syntax . Thank You.

I agree that formatting is very important for this particular pattern.

Crazy what you can do with C++… Pretty cool. C# actually requires the clauses to be expressions, so you cannot use statements like “return 1″. I would expect Java to behave similarly.

Igor

[Admin note: Harris later corrected the following part of the comment]

Also note that it is not necessary for a ternary statement to assign something.
You could always do:

(condition1) ? resultvar = resultval : ( (condition2) ? return 1 : default;

So you can see using it that way gives you other possibilities as well and you could take the program flow in which ever direction you want instead of having to return something for each branch.

Maybe this:

string commentCount =
string.Format(“{0} comment%s”,
(n == 0 ? “no”
: n < 100 ? n.ToString()
: “100+”),
(n == 1 ? “” : “s”);

or this:

string commentCount =
(n == 0 ? “no”
: n < 100 ? n.ToString()
: “100+”) +
” comment” +
(n == 1 ? “” : “s”);

string commentCount =
string.Format(“{0} comment{1}”,
(n == 0 ? “no”
: n