Programmer's Guide to Java™ Certification, A: A Comprehensive Primer, Second Edition

3.15. The Conditional Operator: ?

The ternary conditional operator allows conditional expressions to be defined. The operator has the following syntax:

<condition> ? <expression₁> : <expression₂>

If the boolean expression <condition> is true then <expression₁> is evaluated; otherwise, <expression₂> is evaluated. Of course, <expression₁> and <expression₂> must evaluate to values of compatible types. The value of the expression evaluated is returned by the conditional expression.

boolean leapYear = false;
int daysInFebruary = leapYear ? 29 : 28;   // 28

The conditional operator is the expression equivalent of the if-else statement. The conditional expression can be nested and the conditional operator associates from right to left:

(a?b?c?d:e:f:g) ...