Wondering what the “?” and “:” characters do in C++

[strange plaza]

I’m really new to C++, and I’m seeing notations where the “?” symbol is being used as what seems to be a conditional. For example:

int conditionalMultiplication (int a) {
return a%2 ? 9a : 8a
}

I am wondering what this does and how it can be used properly. In addition, I am wondering what a single colon means/represents.

Help would be greatly appreciated!

I’m sorry if the formatting of the code function is hard to read, I didn’t know how to paste the code directly from its source.

[mighty crypt]

!formatting

[indigo marlin]

Code Formatting

When sharing code with the community, please use the correct formatting for ease of readability.

Example

```py
YOUR CODE HERE
```

Those are back ticks not single quotes, typically the key above TAB

[mighty crypt]

!formatting cpp

[indigo marlin]

Code Formatting

When sharing code with the community, please use the correct formatting for ease of readability.

Example

```cpp
YOUR CODE HERE
```

Those are back ticks not single quotes, typically the key above TAB

[stray dagger]

It's essentially an if statement. It's called a ternary expression.

So

a ? b : c

Is the same as

if(a) {
    b;
}
else {
    c;
}

[strange plaza]

Oh ok, that clears things up. Thanks!

[fast fox]

technically, it isn't a statement, right? so it would be more like:

a = b ? c : d;

// is the same as

if(b) {
  a = c;
} else {
  a = d;
}

[stray dagger]

Yeah it's an expression since it returns a value