The Idiomatic Go Equivalent of C's Ternary Operator

A ternary operator is a three-operand operator that aids programmers in making decisions. It’s a condensed version of the if-else conditional.

The ternary operator is named because it requires three operators to complete. There is a ternary operator (?:) that evaluates like an if-else chain in most programming languages, but there is no ternary operator in Go.

Implementing C’s Ternary Operator in Golang

An example of a ternary operator in the C programming language is given below, and then we will convert it into Golang.

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
  int x = 5, y = 10, result;
  result = (x > y) ? x : y;
  printf("%d", result);
}

Output:

10

So the ternary operator is not available in Go. You can use an if-else block instead, like the following examples below.

Example 1:

package main

import (
	"fmt"
)

func main() {

	var x, y, result int
	x = 5
	y = 10

	if x > y {
		result = x
	} else {
		result = y
	}

	fmt.Println(result)
}

Output:

10

Example 2:

v = f > 0 ? 1 : 0 // if f > 0 then v is 1 else v is 0

The solution is an if-else block. It depicts the same code in a much more readable manner.

package main

import (
	"fmt"
)

func main() {

	var f, result int
	f = 5

	if f > 0 {
		result = 1
	} else {
		result = 0
	}

	fmt.Println(result)
}

Output:

1