Ternary Operator

Ternary Operator in Swift is used to return one of the two values based on the evaluation of a condition.

So, basically, Ternary Operator consists of three parts. The first is the condition, then two values, say value1 and value2. And the syntax of Ternary Operator is as shown in the following.

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condition ? value1 : value2

If condition evaluates to true, then it returns value1, else if the value is false , then function returns value2.

value1 and/or value2 could be an expression as well, that evaluates to some value.

Example

In the following example, we will evaluate a condition, and return one of the two values, based on the condition, using Ternary Operator.

main.swift

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import Foundation

var input = 2
var result = (input == 1 ? 25 : 41)
print("Result : \(result)")

Output

Result : 41

In the ternary operator expression, the condition is input == 1, value1 is 25 and value2 is 41. Since the condition evaluate to false for input value of 2, second value is returned.

Now, let us take a value for input such that the condition evaluates to true.

main.swift

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import Foundation

var input = 1
var result = (input == 1 ? 25 : 41)
print("Result : \(result)")

Output

Result : 25

Since the condition in the Ternary Operator is true, the first value is returned.

Nested Ternary Operator

Just like if-else statement, Ternary Operator can be nested.

Nesting is placing Ternary Operator inside another Ternary Operator.

In the following example, we have nested a Ternary Operator inside another Ternary Operator.

main.swift

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import Foundation

var input1 = 1
var input2 = 5
var result = (input1 == 1 ? (input2 == 5 ? 87 : 99) : 41)
print("Result : \(result)")

Output

Result : 87

Conclusion

In this Swift Tutorial, we learned what Ternary
Operator is in Swift programming, and how to use it, with the help of examples.