The ternary operator: redemption

[wtd]

Is the ternary operator just an ugly piece of legacy syntax, or can it be useful, and even elegant?

Imagine something like:

code:

String foo; if (bar > baz && bar % 3 == 0) {    foo = "yada"; } else {    foo = "wooble"; }

Well, this is pretty easy to convert.

code:

String foo = (bar > baz && bar % 3 == 0) ? "yada" : "wooble";

But... what if we have lots of "else if"?

code:

String foo; if (bar > baz && bar % 3 == 0) {    foo = "yada"; } else if (bar % 4 == 0) {    foo = "wooble"; } else if (baz % 5) {    foo = "ninja"; }

This can become:

code:

String foo =    (bar > baz && bar % 3 == 0) ? "yada"   :    (bar % 4 == 0)              ? "wooble" :    (baz % 5 == 0)              ? "ninja"  :                                  "yada yada";

So, what are the benefits to this?

The benefit is really just one I've talked about a million times before. I only write "foo =" once. This makes it much easier down the read to change the name of the variable, or if you prefer "refactor" the code.

[md]

I've never used the ternary operator before... but that last example is way nicer then the equivalent if statement... I didn't ever even think of doing it like that before... nice!

[wtd]

This is the beauty of expressions, as opposed to statements.