Kotlin Ternary Conditional Operator

Question

What is the equivalent of this expression in Kotlin?

a ? b : c

This is not valid code in Kotlin.

Answer 1

There is no ternary operator in kotlin, as the if else block returns value

so, you can do: val max = if (a > b) a else b instead of java's max = (a > b) ? b : c

We can also use when construction, it also return value:

val max = when(a > b) {
    true -> a
    false -> b
}

Here is link for kotlin documentation : Control Flow: if, when, for, while

Answer 2

There is no ternary operator in Kotlin. It seems problematic at the first glance. But think we can do it with inline if else statement because this is expression here. Simply we have to do -

var number = if(n>0) "Positive" else "Negetive"

Here we can else if block too as many as we need. Like-

var number = if(n>0) "Positive" else if(n<0) "Negative" else "Zero"

So this line is so simple and much readable than ternary operator. when we use more than one ternary operator in java it seems horrible. But here we have a clear syntax. even we can write it in multiple line too.

Answer 3

Why would one use something like this:

when(a) {
  true -> b
  false -> b
}

when you can actually use something like this (a is boolean in this case):

when {
  a -> b
  else -> b
}

Answer 4

Java

int temp = a ? b : c;

Equivalent to Kotlin：

var temp = if (a) b else c

Answer 5

Another short approach to use

val value : String = "Kotlin"

value ?: ""

Here kotlin itself checks null value and if it is null then it passes empty string value.

Answer 6

With the following infix functions I can cover many common use cases pretty much the same way it can be done in Python :

class TestKotlinTernaryConditionalOperator {

    @Test
    fun testAndOrInfixFunctions() {
        Assertions.assertThat(true and "yes" or "no").isEqualTo("yes")
        Assertions.assertThat(false and "yes" or "no").isEqualTo("no")

        Assertions.assertThat("A" and "yes" or "no").isEqualTo("yes")
        Assertions.assertThat("" and "yes" or "no").isEqualTo("no")

        Assertions.assertThat(1 and "yes" or "no").isEqualTo("yes")
        Assertions.assertThat(0 and "yes" or "no").isEqualTo("no")

        Assertions.assertThat(Date() and "yes" or "no").isEqualTo("yes")
        @Suppress("CAST_NEVER_SUCCEEDS")
        Assertions.assertThat(null as Date? and "yes" or "no").isEqualTo("no")
    }
}

infix fun <E> Boolean?.and(other: E?): E? = if (this == true) other else null
infix fun <E> CharSequence?.and(other: E?): E? = if (!(this ?: "").isEmpty()) other else null
infix fun <E> Number?.and(other: E?): E? = if (this?.toInt() ?: 0 != 0) other else null
infix fun <E> Any?.and(other: E?): E? = if (this != null) other else null
infix fun <E> E?.or(other: E?): E? = this ?: other