Use Ternary Conditional Operator in Swift

Written by Team Kodeco

The ternary conditional operator is a shorthand way of writing a common type of if-else statement.

The general syntax for the ternary operator is:

condition ? valueIfTrue : valueIfFalse

Here’s an example of using the ternary conditional operator to write a common type of if-else statement:

let a = 5
let b = 2

let max = a > b ? a : b   // 5

In this example, the variable a is set to 5 and variable b is set to 2. The ternary conditional operator is used to determine which variable is greater and assigns the greater value to the variable max.

Note that the ternary operator is much more concise than the corresponding if statement:

let max: Int
if (a > b) {
  max = a
} else {
  max = b
}

However, some people find the longer form more readable. Use your best judgment to determine the tradeoffs between conciseness and readability.