[erlang-questions] Inline If

[Zoltan Lajos Kis]

On 5/9/2010 11:05 AM, Masklinn wrote:
> On 2010-05-09, at 01:20 , Zoltan Lajos Kis wrote:
>    
>> I guess the ternary operator only makes sense in non-functional languages, where conditional statements do not have return values.
>> Given that there was no ternary operator, you would have to duplicate the assignment part, rendering the code less readable:
>>
>> if (a) { x = b; } else { x = c; };
>> /* x = a ? b : c; */
>>
>> In a functional language, such as Erlang, the these statements do have a return value, so the ternary-operator would only be a syntactic sugar:
>>
>> X = case A of true ->  B; false ->  C end.
>>      
> For that precise case, using if would probably be a bit shorter (thought the second case might not be as readable):
>
> X = if A ->  B; true ->  C end.
>
>
>    
I don't favor the "if" statement exactly because of  the "true case". If 
I had to use if, I would do it this way:

X = if A -> B; (not A) -> C end.