Editing Conditional (computer programming) (section)

====C-like languages====
[[C (programming language)|C]] and C-like languages have a special [[ternary operator]] ([[?:]]) for conditional expressions with a function that may be described by a template like this:
 <code>condition ? evaluated-when-true : evaluated-when-false</code>
This means that it can be inlined into expressions, unlike if-statements, in C-like languages:
<syntaxhighlight lang="c">
my_variable = x > 10 ? "foo" : "bar";  // In C-like languages
</syntaxhighlight>
which can be compared to the Algol-family if–then–else ''expressions'' (in contrast to a ''statement'') (and similar in Ruby and Scala, among others).

To accomplish the same using an if-statement, this would take more than one line of code (under typical layout conventions), and require mentioning "my_variable" twice:
<syntaxhighlight lang="c">
if (x > 10)
    my_variable = "foo";
else
    my_variable = "bar";
</syntaxhighlight>

Some argue that the explicit if/then statement is easier to read and that it may compile to more efficient code than the ternary operator,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://embeddedgurus.com/stack-overflow/2009/02/efficient-c-tips-6-dont-use-the-ternary-operator/ |title=Efficient C Tips #6 – Don't use the ternary operator « Stack Overflow |publisher=Embeddedgurus.com |date=2009-02-18 |access-date=2012-09-07}}</ref> while others argue that concise expressions are easier to read than statements spread over several lines containing repetition.